


Searcher

by iliveatlast



Series: Shiner-verse [2]
Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Homophobia, Racism, Young Daryl Dixon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:33:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 16
Words: 37,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24155137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iliveatlast/pseuds/iliveatlast
Summary: Daryl's dad is gone, but he's still here. Now Daryl just has to figure out where here is going to be, exactly. And who it's going to be with.Season 2, Shiner-verse.
Series: Shiner-verse [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1743010
Comments: 21
Kudos: 79





	1. What Lies Ahead (Part 1)

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to Season 2! You should probably read Shiner for this to make the best sense.

The day after the CDC, Rick looks better. More like himself. Like he's got a plan. He's got a map he found in the RV and he and Shane are plotting the course to Fort Benning. "We're going to cut down to two cars," Rick says, eyeing Daryl. "Carol's Jeep and the RV. That'll be enough for all of us to ride in comfort, saves on gas, and gives us flexibility if we need to get somewhere the RV can't go." He's looking at Daryl like he's gonna pitch a fit, but Daryl just shrugs. At this point, he gets that if he sees his dad again, the pickup'll probably be the last thing on their minds.   
  
It means cutting down on their stuff somewhat - they can load up the back of the Jeep Cherokee, and once they get rid of the dumb canoe there's room on top of the RV, but it's not four or five cars worth of room. A lot of them left stuff behind in the CDC, so winnowing down is easy. For Daryl, he already did the hard stuff before they left camp. The sleeping bags, the tent, his pack, his bow. That's it, for him. That's all he needs.   
  
The problem with losing the pickup, Daryl thinks, is that without it, no one seems to really know where to put him. The original seating plan seemed to be families in the Cherokee - Carol, Sophia, Carl, Lori, Rick - and singles in the RV - T-Dog, Glenn, Dale, Andrea, Shane. Which makes sense. He ain't fucking part of any family, after all, his dad chopped his hand off and split and Merle's god knows where and his mama's a pile of ashes in a shoebox back in his dad's cabin. But the idea of being on the RV with Shane makes him antsy after what happened that night at the CDC and he sees Lori looking at him when he hears that part of the plan. He'd been biting his thumb and he stops immediately when he feels Lori's eyes on him.  
  
"But Daryl was going to teach me more about constellations!" Sophia exclaims.   
  
Rick looks puzzled. "It's daytime though, darling. You can't see any constellations."  
  
"I know that," she says. If she weren't so sweet she'd be rolling her eyes. "But he said he'd tell me the stories about them."  
  
He hadn't said any such thing. He doesn't know a lot of stories about constellations - not good ones, not ones a kid would want to know. Now Shane is looking at him too, and Daryl keeps his face perfectly smooth. He feels Shane's eyes flicker between Daryl and Rick and Lori, like doing the math - how bad an idea is it to leave Daryl in the car with them alone?

"Sounds like more of a nighttime activity to me, honey," Shane says. But he doesn't look at Sophia. He's looking at Daryl.  
  
"Kin tell you later," he mumbles to the girl. "Ain't no thing." He'll sit up front, he thinks, he'll tell Dale he's good at maps. Shane won't try anything in front of Dale.  
  
"Maybe the kids should ride in the RV," Lori says. "Probably have more fun in there than with us stuffy grown ups. We don't know anything about constellations."  
  
"And Dale has Uno," Carl adds, grinning.   
  
So somehow, that happens - Carol, Rick, Lori, T-Dog, and Andrea are in the Cherokee. Dale looks disappointed at this, but Andrea won't meet his eye. Meanwhile, Carl has thrown himself onto the RV, bouncing on the bed in the back, talking a mile a minute to Shane, who just grunts and sets himself at the table in the RV to clean his gun. After a moment more of talking, Carl deflates, and the three of them regroup on the bed in the back with the deck of Uno cards and Glenn.   
  
"All right," Glenn says, spinning his hat around backwards and cracking his knuckles. "Lay it on me. School me in the ways of Uno."  
  
"Wait - you've never played Uno?!" Carl cries out, and then he's talking a mile a minute again about the rules. Daryl's glad Glenn said it because he's never played Uno either. He played blackjack since he was six, when Merle taught him under the guise of teaching him addition and subtraction, and poker since he was nine, when one of his dad's friends didn't show and they needed another person to make the game. But Uno doesn't even use the same cards as then. He listens close and he sits in between Sophia and Carl, so that he'll get to watch two people go before he has to play.   
  
Uno's not hard, but he keeps forgetting that the rules change. So he'll put down a green and someone will go, "No, we're red now, see the wild card" or "We changed directions last turn so it's my turn now." Daryl'd get frustrated losing at some stupid baby game but Glenn is being so ridiculous it makes it hard to take the game too serious. He moans every time someone makes him draw two, he practically jumps out the window when Daryl makes him draw four, and he forgets to say Uno every time he's down to one and racks up the penalty cards. It's so stupid even Daryl finds himself laughing as Glenn throws his cards in the air and flails around, cursing his bad luck as Uno cards scatter everywhere.   
  
"Thought you were going to teach them the constellations," Shane drawls mockingly from the table, and Daryl clams up immediately. Stares at his cards. He'd almost forgotten Shane was there.   
  
"Uh, Shane, you mind? I'm being schooled in the ways of Uno," Glenn says, picking up all his cards, and when they start the game again, he winks at Daryl. Daryl's not sure what to do with that. 

It's not until the RV starts squealing he notices they're driving through a graveyard. 

* * *

"Dead in the water," Dale says again. But it's not the water. It's a junkyard. The part Dale needs to get the RV going has got to be around somewhere, and there's other stuff too. Daryl can see a chip bag poking near a car window and feels himself salivate. It's been almost a day since he ate anything.   
  
"This is a graveyard," Lori says when the others start to spread out, get what they need, and Daryl scoffs a little under his breath. Whole damn world's a graveyard now and always has been. Fucking dead people everywhere now, and even before, more dead people on earth than living. Hell, all of Georgia's a fucking graveyard, all the Cherokee's that got rounded up there during the Trail of Tears to die on their way to Indian Country. Ain't that in Carl's history book? Our Glorious State? What're they meant to do? Just lay down and die right with the rest of them?   
  
Everyone splits up. Carol makes a beeline for Sophia, and Sophia grins and practically skips over to her.   
  
"Glenn sucks at Uno," Carl says as he trails behind Sophia, over to his mother.   
  
"Carl. That's not nice," Lori says, and that time Daryl thinks he is going to scoff, but then she gives Carl a grin. "You should say 'I beat Glenn's butt at Uno' instead."  
  
Carl laughs. The two of them look over at Glenn, who Dale is shoving screwdrivers at.   
  
"I beat his butt," Carl said, and Daryl finds himself grinning as he turns away.   
  
He feels weird trailing the kids again - especially since this is a job he could do well. He'd been with Merle a couple times when he was younger and Merle was into stealing cars. He didn't know if he'd remember how to hotwire one, but he can sure as hell figure out how to get the damn things open, hopefully without tripping off any alarms.   
  
He finds T-Dog prying at the gas tank of some car and he scoffs before grabbing his arrow and shoving it in between the hinged door to the tank and the car. With a little muscle, it pops open.   
  
"Shit, thought coons were supposed to be good at this kinda thing," he says, grinning at T-Dog, and for a moment T-Dog looks so mad Daryl almost runs. Then T-Dog notices who it is, and he calms down a little. Not a lot, but a little.   
  
"Give me that tube," he says instead, and Daryl looks at him for a moment - is this a trick? To get Daryl to come closer so he can whop him one? - gets the hose. He hands it over quick and darts back, but T-Dog doesn't do anything other then insert the hose into the tank and suck in.   
  
"My father was a minister," he says, when the gas starts flowing into the plastic container. "In Marietta. He even catch me thinking about breaking into a car, would have locked me the vestry til I was eighteen with only the Good Book for sustenance."   
  
Daryl nods. He's not sure why T-Dog's saying this, but he's not knocking out Daryl's teeth, so he'll take it.   
  
"You know that's offensive, right? What you said?"   
  
Daryl shifts. Offensive is for lily livered democrats and whiny little babies. He shrugs instead.

"You're a good kid, Daryl."  
  
Daryl's literally never heard that before and he must look startled because T-Dog laughs. "I'm just a person, man. Like you. Bleed the same blood, everything. Not everyone can have a minister for a dad." T-Dog grins at him, teeth white, and Daryl bristles. "Sometimes you gotta learn a different way."  
  
Daryl shrugs. Spits on the ground. " 'M gonna open more cars," he mutters. And then he's off, popping more of them with his arrow, not letting himself think about what T-Dog just said. Fucking rich of the guy who handcuffed his dad to a fucking roof to be lecturing him about bible shit or whatever. Fucking typical. 

* * *

If he'd doubted what T-Dog said about them bleeding the same blood, he's able to see it up close when the herd comes and T-Dog slices his fucking arm open and that shit gushes everywhere.   
  
T-Dog's just clumsy, Daryl thinks somewhat hysterically as he stabs a walker in the fucking head with an arrow and drags T-Dog behind a car. That's why he dropped the key, on the roof, cause he's a fucking butterfingers, can't even walk in a straight line on a paved fucking road - 

He throws the walker down on T-Dog and pulls on one himself and lays there, trying to make himself as small as possible, trying to be invisible as feet stumble past him on the road. _I'm invisible_ , he thinks. It's a familiar thought. It's the thought of getting home and seeing the bottles heaped up on the kitchen table, or seeing the weird look in his dad's eye or the vestiges of powder on the table and getting the hell out of dodge as soon as possible. I'm not here. I'm not here. I'm invisible.  
  
And all the while he can see T-Dog, eyes glassing over over, see the blood spreading all over his shirt, wider and wider.   
  
When the herd of walkers finally pass, he hauls T-Dog up - it's not easy, he's a big guy, and he can barely stand by himself. Daryl shoves a rag at him, not sure whether it's okay to make noise. Should he call someone? Yell for Rick, or Dale, or Carol? He ends up laying the rag over T-Dog's arm, and he says the only medical advice he really knows.   
  
"Push on it," he says. That's when he hears it, far off in the distance.   
  
Shrieks.


	2. What Lies Ahead (Part 2)

By the time he gets T-Dog down to the others, it's too late. Sophia's gone and Rick's gone too. He's about to dive into the woods after them, but Dale hisses at him "Stop! If we don't keep pressure on that wound -"  
  
Carol is practically a puddle in Lori's arms, her hands over her mouth, shoulders hiccuping. Daryl stares at her as he presses down with all his weight on T-Dog's arm. It ain't right, he thinks wildly, it ain't right, she was just here, she was playing Uno, she was just right here -   
  
And then there's Rick, stumbling up the trail, blood on his shirt, and Carol practically collapses to the ground.   
  
"Where is she?" she screams, and every hand goes towards her, telling quiet, shhh. "Rick, where is she? She isn't - God, she isn't -"   
  
But Rick doesn't look resigned to telling her bad news or anything. Instead, he looks confused. "She ain't here?"  
  
It's Shane, Glenn, and Rick going off in the woods to find her the second time, and Daryl doesn't give them the chance to say no. Dale's taken over nursing T-Dog, and Daryl's got his bow on his back and he's climbing over the guard rail after them before they even realize he's following.   
  
"Get back there," Shane says, and Daryl finds himself moving towards Glenn. "Last thing we need are two kids lost in these woods."  
  
"Shane," Rick says. He's looking at Daryl, at the bow.   
  
"Man, I'm telling you -"  
  
"Ain't gonna be me gets lost," he mumbles.   
  
"Shane, Daryl knows his way around the woods. Remember at the camp? Tracked that deer for two days, man. And it's a deer." Glenn's backing him up, and with that Shane sucks his teeth and plunges forward. Daryl follows.   
  
He can't spot her tracks in - Rick ran right over them, in his fucking cowboy boots, but if he was really following her, then his trail is clear as day. He sees where Rick picked her up and frowns, tries to follow. The crick was a good hiding spot, Daryl things, looking at the moss, the roots, the running water covering her sound, confusing her scent, but bad for him. No idea where she got out from here. If she did get out where Rick points, then Glenn's probably standing right in the fucking middle of where he needs to be.   
  
"Hey, Korea, step off to one side, you're mucking up the trail," he says, and Glenn moves quick. Daryl leans over. Studies the terrain. 

"Assuming she knows her left from her right," Shane says, and Daryl tries to ignore him.   
  
"Shane, she understood me fine," Rick snaps.  
  
"Kid's tired and scared, man. She had her a close call with two walkers. Got to wonder how much of what you said stuck."  
  
"Got clear prints right here," Daryl interrupts. The back of his neck feels hot with anger. It's like Shane doesn't want them to find Sophia so he can prove Rick wrong. That won't do nothing for Sophia. "She did like you said. Headed back to the highway." He looks at Shane, level. Sophia ain't stupid. "She knows her left from her right," Daryl adds.   
  
They head out, and Daryl's in the lead now. This is something he knows. These are things he can read, like Sophia and Carol read books, he can read the disturbance in the leaf litter, the edges of her sneakers on grass, where her hands pushed through the branches. It's going the right way, back to the highway, and for a minute Daryl thinks she'll beat them back. She'll be up there, muddy and wet from the river but smiling, hugging that dumb doll under one arm, her mother smoothing her hair over and over again.   
  
But then the path changes and it doesn't makes sense. Veers off someway. "Maybe she saw something, spooked her," Shane says. "Made her run off."  
  
But anything big enough to spook her would have left a trail. "Ain't not other footprints," he says, rubbing his nose. "Just hers."  
  
Shane's looking at him like he's boiling mad, but Rick steps in. Sends Shane and Glenn back to the highway.  
  
When it's just him and Rick, Daryl works quicker. Rick doesn't ask dumb questions, doesn't second guess. He just follows, surprisingly quiet in those cowboy boots. 

"Tracks are gone," Rick says at one point. Daryl looks again, frowns.   
  
"There faint, but they ain't gone." He points. "She came through here."  
  
"How can you tell?" Rick asks. "I don't see anything. Dirt, grass..."  
  
Daryl scowls at him. "Ain't some dumb kid," he says. "Been trackin' since I was smaller'n that girl. You want a lesson in trackin' or you wanna find her'n get out ass off that interstate?"  
  
After that, Rick's quiet until they find the walker.   


* * *

Daryl's gut a lot of things, but gutting the walker has to be one of the worst.   
  
The only thing that keeps it from being the worst is that Sophia isn't in there. 

When he finishes digging through woodchuck and walker juice, he sits back on his but and clenches his fist. He wants to bit his thumb but it's fucking disgusting, so he just rubs his thumbnail down the seam of his jeans, over and over.   
  
"Hey." Rick is looking at him, blue eyes level, kind. "At least we know."  
  
"At least we know," Daryl echoes.   
  
When they get back, the disappointment on Carol's face almost kills him. She's standing right there at the guard rail and the second she sees there's no blonde girl in Rick's wake, he face crumples.   
  
"You didn't find her?"  
  
"Her trail went cold," Rick says. Daryl can't say anything. "We'll pick it up again, first light."  
  
"You can't leave my daughter out there on her own, to spend the night alone in the woods."  
  
She's looking at Daryl like she wants him to say something, and he opens his mouth and closes it. There's nothing to say. They should have come back with her.   
  
"It's not good searching in the dark," Rick says patiently. "Get more people lost, trip over her trail."  
  
"She's twelve! She can't be out there on her own! You didn't find anything?"  
  
Daryl can't look at her. He swallows, hard. Feels the shadow of a bruise from Shane at the CDC constricting him there, like a noose.   
  
"I know this is hard, but I have to ask you not to panic," Rick says, and Daryl could have told him that wouldn't do no good, specially since when Rick says that, he sounds like he's panicking. "We know she's out there."  
  
"Tracked her for a while," Daryl is finally able to say, but then Carol's eyes are on him again and he clams up. Stares at his feet. Then Carol follows his gaze, down to his shoes, and he hears rather then sees her go pale.   
  
"Is that - is that blood?"  
  
She's almost hyperventilating as Rick explains about the walker. When Andrea asks how they could know it didn't get Sophia, he glares at her. How in the hell is that useful?  
  
"We cut the sumbitch open," he says, but not for everyone, just for Carol. "Made sure."  


Carol looks horrified but he can't tell with what - with him, for ripping open a walker's gut bag? With the idea that it was even possible the walker could have gotten Sophia? But then Carol is sinking, sinking, resting on the guardrail, Lori rubbing circles on her back, Rick staring at her helplessly.   
  
"How could you just leave her out there to begin with?" she shoots at Rick, and Rick almost flinches. "How could you just leave her?"  
  
And Daryl hears that like a brand.   
  
He shouldn't have left her. Or Carl. Should have stayed close, instead of going off. T-Dog mighta died, a voice in his head says, and Dary'l shoves it away. Who gives a shit about T-Dog, fucking colored asshole, fucking grown ass man who should have been able to take care of himself, compared to Sophia?   
  
But Sophia can take care of herself too, Daryl thinks as they start to set up camp for the night. She's smart, smarter'n he was when he was her age, and he got lost in the woods way younger'n her and he came back out. Itchy ass, but no worse for wear.   
  
Itchy ass, but no worse for wear. That's what'll happen to Sophia.

* * *

That night, Carol takes the Jeep Cherokee to herself. Daryl's about to bring her over the sleeping bags, but Lori touches his arm and he jumps.   
  
"Let me do that," she says, and she goes over and talks to Carol, quiet, low.   
  
The rest of them are sleeping in the RV again, but Daryl doesn't do a lot of sleeping. He's up on the roof with Rick and a map, trying to figure out if it's of a scale to be useful to them (it isn't) and how to best structure the search. Daryl's done searches before - never official with a cop running them or anything, but for friends of his dad, his neighbors dog, once. He's normally one of a crowd. He's not the one in front pouring over the map, calling the shots.   
  
They set out tomorrow a huge crowd, and Daryl bites his cheek as he tries not to yell at them all to stay behind him. Maybe Rick said something, because they do. He leads them back to the crick and they start going methodical.   
  
When the find the tent, Daryl's in front of everyone, so of course he's at the door of the tent first. As Carol calls out, tremulously, Daryl grips the knife tighter and tighter. She'd have answered by now. Sophia wouldn't make her mama wait.   
  
When he goes in the smell hits first, and he can hear Rick and Shane outside, retching. It's too old, he thinks, she'd only have been here a day, it's not long enough to - but the hair peeking over the top of the chair looks blonde for a moment and he almost passes out.   
  
It's not Sophia, though. Or a walker. Just somebody who ate their own gun and left themselves here in the tent to scare Daryl.   
  
Still. It takes him a minute to recover. And as he does, he hears Carol, outside.   
  
"Daryl?" He takes a second. Breathes as deep as he can in the rancid tent. "Daryl?"  
  
And then he's out. He shakes his head. "Ain't her," he says. And then the church bells start.

* * *

He shouldn't have let them run like that. He'd ran too, but he should have known better. They leave the methodical place, the logical search, and they go tearing through the trees, guessing which way to go, nobody looking down at the clues they could be crushing under their feet. They run and they run and they get there and -

She ain't there. 

By the time Daryl gets back in the church, Carol's in the front row praying and crying. "Let her be safe," he hears. "Let her be alive and safe. Please, Lord. Punish me however you want, but show mercy on her."  
  
And if that wasn't the prayer Carol'd said every day of her married life, Daryl'd eat his bow.   
  


* * *

"Y'all gotta follow the creek bed back," Shane says. He's rubbing at his hair. "Daryl, you're in charge."   
  
Which is the best way to make sure he doesn't stay behind and look for her.   
  
"Splittin' us up," he says. Looks at Rick. "You sure?"

And Rick says yeah. And they let fucking Carl stay.   
  
It's quiet on the way back. Lori looks worried about Carl but trying not to show it as she walks with Carol, arm and arm. Andrea looks pissed, but she pretty much always looks pissed. Glenn's just quiet.   
  
"So this is it? This is the whole plan?" Carol asks. She's talking to Daryl, and he tenses up. She's sitting on the log and looking up at him like he knows something. Like there's some answer he can give her. But he can't give her anything back here, playing fucking safari guide to people who are running around the woods with their ankles uncovered in tic season. 

"Guess the plan is to whittle us down to smaller and smaller groups," he says, and he regrets it the second he says it. That ain't helpful. 

The women are in some kind cat fight and he's almost on Lori's side until she starts talking to Carol like Carol's doing something wrong. "I don't know if any of us would have gone after her the way he did," he hears Lori say, and it strikes him like an arrow in the back. He likes to think he would have. But would he?   
  
Still though. It isn't on Lori to fucking scold Carol for being upset when it's Carol's kid whose fucking missing. 

They're just about to the creek when he hears the gunshot.


	3. Bloodletting

This is why they shouldn't have left him in charge - he's not fucking good at answering questions.   
  
Lori won't stop yapping about the gunshot - _why a gunshot? why just one? -_ and the answer Daryl wants to give her is he doesn't know any better than her what happened but where he's from, you don't go running towards gunshots.   
  
Take them back. You're in charge.   
  
That's the only thing he knows to do, so he does it. Or he'd do it if these women would stop fucking pulling off to the side for private conversations.   
  
"We're all hoping and praying with you. For what it's worth," he hears Amy say as he notices - again! - that half the members of their party have stopped. And it gets him up, it does. Carol doesn't need to do anymore praying for some bullshit God to beat the shit out of her so her little girl will be okay. It's crap and it's stupid and it makes him mad, mad enough to go over and yell at them, even though he doesn't mean to.   
  
"I'll tell you what it's worth," he snipes. "Not a damn thing. It's a waste of time, all this hopin' and prayin'." He looks at Andrea who is looking at him like he's the worst person she's ever seen. He looks at Carol, who is looking at him too, in a way he can't be sure of. "We're gonna locate that girl," he says. "She's gonna be just fine." 

He shoots Amy a dirty look - is he the only one that isn't mourning this little girl like she's already dead? Jeeze - and starts off again. This time, nobody stops.

Until Andrea falls behind again and almost gets fucking eaten, only to be saved by a crazy lady on horseback who tells Lori she needs to come with her, now.   
  
And like - it's not like Will Dixon ever gave him a comprehensive stranger danger, but he's pretty sure in school they told him that even if someone says they're your parents friend, you don't go with them!  
  
But Lori's on the back of the horse in an instant and gone before Glenn can say more than uh-huh to the directions she yells out. He's staring after the horse for so long, Daryl has to nudge him with his bow.   
  
At least it's already pointing in the right direction to finish off Andrea's walker. 

* * *

Daryl's biting his thumb on the side as Carol fights with Dale about leaving Sophia. Dale is insistent. They're split, scattered, weak.   
  
Which is all very well and good for Dale so say when he's not the twelve year old girl fighting her way in the woods back to them.   
  
"Shane -" he says, and he has to clear his throat when everyone looks at him. "Shane said I was in charge."   
  
They're staring and Daryl grimaces, looks at his shoes.   
  
"Look son," Dale says.   
  
"Ain't your son," Daryl spits. T-Dog, sweating and leaned up against the RV, closes his eyes.   
  
"Daryl," Andrea says. "Look. Sure, you're good in the woods - great even, better than the rest of us, we can all admit that, right?" A pause. Maybe they're nodding, but Daryl's not going to look around to find out. "But right now -"  
  
"This is still part of searchin' for Sophia, ain't it?" he says. "Means it's on me.

Everyone is really staring at him. He swallows again.   
  
"Mean - ain't tomorrow early enough to pull up stakes? Gives us a change to rig a big sign, leave her some supplies. She comes back tonight, ain't a problem. I can stay here tonight. Watch the RV."  
  
Dale is staring at him. "You're fourteen years old," he says, and Daryl shakes out his hair.   
  
"So what, old man? That mean I don' know how to do right by some little girl?"  
  
"No. It means it's probably not a good thing that we need to be taught a lesson in patience from a teenager." Dale looks at Carol. "If the RV's staying, then I am too."   
  
Andrea pffts, but ends up volunteering to stay too. Glenn does - but he gets sent off in the Cherokee with T-Dog. 

"Not an option," Dale says. That cut has gone from bad to worse. He has a very serious blood infection. Get him to that farm. See if they have any antibiotics, because if not? T-Dog will die. No joke."  
  
Daryl's biting his thumb again. "Hm -" And there they are again, fucking looking at him. Don't they have no manners? "I - might have something."  
  
Digging into his dad's stash in front of Dale, Glenn, Andrea and Carol isn't exactly how he wanted to spend his day, but it could be worse. Could be Rick and Lori. Or Shane.   
  
He's able to sort out the crystal, the x. There's painkillers but mostly oxy contin, which he's pretty sure doesn't have any antibiotics in it, but he throws them over anyway. Cut must hurt like a bitch, especially with blood poisoning. Finally he finds the pill bottle he needs and tosses it to Dale, who looks so stunned he barely catches it.   
  
"There. Oxycycline. Not the generic stuff, either. 'S'first class." Everyone's staring at him still. He shifts from foot to foot. "What?"  
  
"Where'd you get all this?" Dale asks. He's staring at the baggie of bottles as Daryl shoves it back down tho the bottom of his pack.   
  
"Ain't mine," he says, like that should be fucking obvious. He sure as hell never got no oxycycline prescribed for the fucking clap. " 'S'my dad's."  
  
"Maybe I should hold onto that for you, s- Daryl," Dale says, and he steps forward with his hand out. Andrea scoffs.   
  
"You're not his father Dale, and you're not mine either! You don't get to just take anything you don't approve of and hold onto it for safekeeping!"  
  
"I - Andrea! This is a very different situation! Daryl's a child -"  
  
"So what am I, a child too? Because that's how you're treating me Dale, and I don't appreciate it!"  
  
And then they're off, fighting in the RV as Glenn loads up T-Dog to chase down his horse riding Zorro lady. It means he and Carol are alone outside.   
  
"Thank you," she says, and Daryl just shrugs.   
  
"'M gonna go find some paint'r somethin'. Make that sign." And he leaves. To find the things he needs. To make the sign so Sophia can find her way home.  
  
  



	4. Save the Last One

With the Cherokee gone, Carol has to sleep in the RV with them. Dale's up on the roof, keeping watch, and Andrea's messing around with a gun like it's the most serious thing she's ever done, and Carol is curled up in the back, crying. 

She won't stop and it's driving Daryl crazy. It's running through his ears, under his skin, making him itch and twitch, and he wishes Andrea would put down the stupid gun already and go talk to Carol and make her stop crying. He's never made anybody stop crying in his life. He doesn't know what to do. Ain't girls supposed to be good at shit like that, cheering other people up?

Finally, he can't take it anymore and he slings his crossbow over his shoulder and tells Andrea, " 'M gonna go out. Walk the road a little. Look for the girl." 

Andrea just looks at him like she doesn't really understand what he's saying. Carol understands it, though, because she stops crying. When he looks back at her, she's wiping her face, and she looks so grateful, so relieved that she isn't the only one who can't fucking sleep when her kid is out there, that Daryl just gives her a nod and steps out with a flashlight into the night. 

Andrea comes too, which makes him wrinkle his nose a little. He doesn't like Andrea - doesn't like her sass and her fighting, doesn't like the way she seems to think a guns her godgiven right even if she barely knows which end has the trigger, doesn't like the way she looks at him, like he's something on his face all the time, something gross. He wants to tell her she's meant to stay inside and make Carol feel better, but this is Andrea and he wonders if she even knows how. So he just grunts and lets her follow him as he paces, shining the light into the woods in slow, deliberate sweeps. 

"You really think we're gonna find Sophia?" she asks, and he shines the light in her face in the way that used to piss Merle off. She squints in the light, looks off in the other direction. 

"The hell's wrong with you people?" he says, scanning the flashlight through the trees. "She ain't dead. Just missin'. She could be holed up in a farmhouse somewhere. We barely started lookin'."

"Well, do you?" Andrea says, and now he gets a clearer read on her voice - it's pity. She thinks he's delusional, that he doesn't know bad shit happens to good people, that he doesn't know kids are vulnerable, that kids can get hurt just as easily as anyone else, if not more so. 

He scoffs. "People get lost. They survive. Happens all the time."

"She's only twelve."

"I'm fourteen."

"Yeah, well, she's not you, Daryl. And even at fourteen - "

"I was younger'n her an' I got lost." He rarely tells this story, even though he likes it. He'd told it to Merle when he'd gotten back from juvie and Merle had laughed. He hadn't told his dad, because he wouldn't have cared or he'd have been mad it took Daryl so long to find his way back. And he hadn't told anyone else because it didn't exactly look good that he was gone for over a week and his dad hadn't even seemed to noticed. "Nine days in the woods eating berries, wiping my ass with poison oak."

"Wow," Andrea says. "It took them nine days to find you?"

Daryl scoffs, spits. Keeps shining the light. "My dad w's off on some bender, my brother was in juvie - they hadn't even noticed I was gone. Made my own way back. Went straight into the kitchen, made myself a san'wich." He doesn't tell her about the itchy ass part. It's still Andrea. 

He meant for the story to make it clear he didn't need pity - he wasn't delusional. It happened, it happened a lot, and it was going to happen here. But she's still looking at him with pity. 

"Wait - really? No one reported you missing? No one was even looking for you?"

Daryl shrugs. Focuses on the flashlight. "Din't need nobody looking for me. 'S'lookin' for myself. 'Sides, that's the difference, ain't it? Sophia's got people lookin' for her. I'd call that an advantage."

He sets his pace a little faster so he's far enough away that talking wouldn't be safe. Then he starts again, sweeping the light through all the trees and bushes.

* * *

He thinks the hanging walker is interesting. The neck, not the brain, so he hangs there dangling. The way the walkers ate all the flesh off his legs so you can see the skeleton poking through. It reminds him of the toy his eighth grade science teacher had sitting on her desk, clear plastic covering layers and layers of nerves and organs and bones that you could take apart and put back together. That's what this guy looks like, Daryl things. Like someone took the plastic and the flesh off his legs and was just showing them the legs. Like a fucking pinata.   
  
When he says as much to Andrea, she pukes.   
  
"I thought we were changing the subject," she says.   
  
He shrugs. That's what she gets for all her stupid pity. 

"Aren't you going to..." she stares up at the thing. He frowns. 

"Waste of an arrow. He ain't goin' nowhere."  
  
She's still staring at him. Opted out, he heard in his head. Sophia had thought Andrea'd been behind, in the blast, and the CDC, before Carol had corrected her. No, sweetheart. Andrea got out. He watches her watch the walker, and he thinks about it. He's never wished he were dead. Never. Not even when shit was really bad, when his dad was dealing PCP and sampling his own wares and there was no food in the house and Merle was in juvie and his dad told him he wasn't allowed to talk to him while he was locked up. Even then he thought, if he waited it out, if he planned better, if he thought things through, that eventually he'd be able to get somewhere else. Not even somewhere better. He wasn't that delusional. He knew that planning to leave school at sixteen and move in with his brother who dealt meth wasn't necessarily going to make his life so different than it was at fourteen. But nobody'd hit him there, and that could be enough.   
  
Now that plan's gone to shit, but still. If he waits long enough eventually, something's going to come. He'll get someplace, eventually. It doesn't even have to be better. It just has to be different.   
  
"You want to live now or naw?" he asks, and she looks at him, and she doesn't look mad or irritated or anything. She just looks - blank.   
  
"I'll trade you," she says. "An answer for an arrow. Fair?"  
  
He shrugs. He doesn't play games like this.   
  
"I don't know. If I want to live or if I have to or if it's just a habit." He waits, but that's it. That's all she says.   
  
He shrugs again. Raises his bow, almost carelessly. Nails the walker right in the eyes. Grins a little.   
  
"Waste of an arrow. Come on. We should get back."

* * *

When they get back, all he hears as they come up to the RV is the RV door swinging shut. He goes in and Carol's curled up in the chair again. This time, she doesn't look up. 


	5. Cherokee Rose

It's weird to show up at a new place and immediately have to go to a funeral for some guy they didn't know, but it gives Daryl some time to scope out their new hosts, and that suits him just fine. 

He heard Rick say to Dale that it was a 160 year old farmhouse. "Been in the family all this time," he said. Daryl's family has probably been in Georgia that long too, if not longer. He doesn't think any Dixon ever lived anywhere but Georgia. But it's like two different countries. He's aware of the raggedy arms of his shirt, the puckering hem of his jeans, the dirt and motor oil and god knows what else he's got on him from their days out on the highway. Even the crossbow ain't something these people'd touch. They probably got antique shotguns, muskets from the Revolutionary War, an Enfield their great grand-daddy used in the War Between the States - and they probably skirt around and never say on which side. They don't even talk the same language, listening to Hershel spout off about grace, his voice slow, measured. "You want a drawl, not a gargle," his second grade teacher had said to them. She was a Teach For America transplant from Boston. She didn't make it more than two months. He hadn't gotten what she meant then, but he did now, listening to Hershel and Maggie and them. A drawl, not a gargle. And he sounded like he was practically swallowing stones. 

He's never been so conspicuously trash in his life, and he folds his arms over his chest and runs his thumbnail over the inside of his arm and he watches as they pile rocks for some man he'd never met. His thinks of his mama's ashes, about leaving them behind in the cabin by accident. These people wouldn't keep their mama in a shoebox in the closet, and they definitely wouldn't leave her behind when the world was ending.

And when he's not looking at the house, at the old man in his suspenders and his suit jacket in the middle of summer, at the daughters with their smooth, shiny hair, their earrings, their flowing shirts, the farmhand with his fucking hat doffed, he's looking at Shane.

At first he's looking because Shane looks stupid and he thinks it's funny. He's practically swimming in a pair of overalls and a huge plaid shirt and he shaved his head and his goddamn ears are sticking out like mug handles from his big bald head. Daryl makes a note never to say anything about that haircut, in case someone tries to get him to cut his own. However stupid Shane looks with a buzz cut, Daryl looks worse, and for the first time in his life, on the run in the apocalypse and now without his dad, he's been able to let his hair out for almost three months. He strokes it sometimes, at night - it's softer than he thinks it is and it's nice, having something covering him up, even if it does get sweaty.  
  
But soon Shane stops looking funny ha-ha and stats looking funny strange. He's twitching and his eyes are watering and if Daryl didn't know any better, he'd think maybe Shane was on something. What did he know? Maybe Shane was on something. But that didn't quite fit. It was something else, but Shane with his head buzzed looked like a totally different person.   
  
"I'm not myself," he hears his dad's ex whisper in his ear, and it makes him shiver and he stops looking at Shane. 

* * *

The map is the thing Daryl's really looking at - with a real map, finding Sophia just got a whole lot easier - until he hears "This is your property, and we will respect that." Followed by Rick slamming down his gun in the middle of the map.   
  
Shane's back in his normal clothes now but there's something still a little off about him - he keeps the hood of the car in between him and Shane at all times, just in case. Shane's putting his own gun down on the car, and Daryl feels the old man - Hershel - watching him. He scowls. He doesn't have any guns - his dad took both them with him to Atlanta, and he's not putting his bow down anywhere, for anybody. Especially with Shane all twitchy, not for some old man who thinks Daryl's nothing better than the dirt under his feet.   
  
They're talking about taking a day off, well, that suits Daryl just fine. He's better alone, anyway - not wrangling a herd of women up and down the creek, not tagged along by Rick, but by himself, he can cover more land, not have to check and make sure he's not leaving anybody behind.   
  
He's coming round the house when he hears someone call out "Daryl!" and he almost jumps. Looking around, it's Rick. Hiding on the other side of the house like a cat waiting for a mouse to come past, creepy motherfucker. For a second, Rick almost sounded like his dad.   
  
"You okay on your own?" Rick asks as Daryl adjusts the bow on his back. He's looking seriously at Daryl, not like he thinks Daryl can't do it, but like it's a real question. Daryl shrugs.   
  
" 'M better on my own. I'll be back 'fore dark."  
  
"Hey," Rick calls out, and Daryl tenses again. Was that too flip? Maybe it wasn't really a question. Maybe it was giving Daryl the chance to give the right answer, to stay put. He hadn't pissed Rick off yet but when he did he had no doubt he'd hit harder than Shane. Could probably run faster too. So he feels himself tightening up as Rick comes closer, ready to dart if he needs to, even though who knows how much faster Rick will be catching him.   
  
But instead, Rick just looks at him. "We got a base. We can get this search properly organized now."   
  
Meaning what? That working with Daryl hadn't been properly organized? That he'd fucked up?  
  
"You got a point or we just chatting?"  
  
"My point," Rick says, "is it lets you off the hook."  
  
It's like a punch in his stomach.   
  
"You don't owe us anything," Rick says, taking another step forward. "It's okay if you want to take a step back. You're just a kid, and it's a lot of weight to carry. We can take it from here."  
  
Daryl looks at Rick. Spits. Adjusts the crossbow.  
  
"My other plans fell through," he says, and he stalks off.   
  
Not that far, though - he stops when he rounds the RV, when he hears the spring of the backdoor opening, hears Hershel come down the steps.   
  
"Who is that boy?" Hershel asks, so Daryl stops at the far end of the RV and waits.   
  
"That's Daryl," Rick says. "He's been working pretty hard on the search for Sophia."  
  
"How old is he?"  
  
"Fourteen."  
  
Hershel makes a deep noise in his throat, something low and dissatisfied. "Hrm. And his father?"  
  
A pause. "He's - not with us anymore."  
  
"Hrm." Another long moment. Daryl thinks they might be done, is about to go, when Hershel says one more thing. "Even your children you have running around like little soldiers."  
  
Rick's answer is slow, deliberate. "Well. Daryl knew most of this stuff before he took up with us. That's his bow, his knife. Used to go hunting with his dad, I think."  
  
"You're not exactly discouraging it though, are you? Him running around fully armed."  
  
"Well, it's not exactly - That's the way the world right now is, Hershel. This is the sort of things you need if you have to stay out there."   
  
Hershel is quiet a long time, and Daryl bites his thumb. He's not sure what he thinks about the fact that Will Dixon, accidentally on purpose, raised the perfect kid for the end of the world.   
  
"We could give you more space," Rick finally continues. "Set up over by the barn."  
  
"No," Hershel says. "No need for that."  
  
And Daryl slips away. Clearly they're not going to say anything else worth listening to. 

* * *

It's nice being alone again. Just his thoughts. Since the attack on camp he's spent more time around people than he ever has before in his life. There's something about being alone in the woods that makes his shoulders release a little, makes him breathe deeper. He's not relaxing, not exactly. He still has a job to do. But it's easier to do it without everyone pestering and whining at him all the time. He's almost enjoying himself as he trots through the woods.   
  
Maybe he'll find her today, he thinks. Not just pick up her trail, but really find her. Maybe how he feels right now, the lightness on his shoulders, maybe that's a sign. Maybe it's luck pointing the way.   
  
When he finds the house, he thinks maybe it's it. It's a cute house, like something out of a story or something. She'd like that. There's curtains over the windows of the front door - white, with pink flowers. That feels like a sign too. Not enough of a sign to enter without his bow drawn. But still. It's something.   
  
She's not there. And for a second, a millisecond, there's a flicker of doubt. If this good day, the house, the curtains, isn't enough, then what will be? But then he shakes that thought off, like a dog trying to get water out of his ears. It ain't useful, thinking like that. Won't make finding her any faster.   
  
And when he finds the little nest in the closet, that feels like it means something too.   
  
He goes outside. "Sophia!" he yells. Waits. You always have to wait, in case there's a response. Amateurs keep yelling, over and over. They'll yell so loud you never hear the person you're looking for. "Sophia!"  
  
She doesn't come. But he finds the flower. The Cherokee Rose. And he know it means something. 

* * *

Carol's in the RV when he gets back. She looks like something from Little House on the Prairie - sitting in the back, sewing, with a kerosene lantern next to her. 

"Cleaned up," Carol says, when she sees him. He feels the dirt all over him and shuffles a little. "I wanted it to be nice for her." Oh. She meant the RV.  
  
"For a second thought I was in the wrong place," he jokes, then inside he cringes. Stupid. She'll take that wrong, she'll think he thinks it looks bad, that it's be better the old way, he's reminded her that Sophia's the one in the wrong place - 

So he just takes out the bottle he had behind his back and puts it on the dresser.   
  
He'd thought it looked nice, up at the house. He'd gone through Hershel's recycling and hadn't found one fucking glass bottle, but he'd scoured around the tents and found one, a beer bottle. He almost tried to peel the label off but he thought it'd look worse with all that sticky shit smeared all over it, so he left it. Inside he thought it'd looked nice but here, in the cleaned up RV, it looks like tacky shit, like trash, and he almost takes it and throws it away but Carol's already looking at it, so there's not way out but through. 

"A flower?" Carol asks.   
  
" S'a Cherokee Rose," Daryl answers. It's easier to look at the flower to her but every time he looks at her while he explains, her eyes are big and blue and look like Sophia's so he finds himself continually stealing glances. "Story is that when American soldiers were moving Indians off their land? On the Trail of Tears, the Cherokee mothers, they were grievin' and cryin' so much 'cause they were losing their little ones along the way. From exposure and disease and starvation. A lot of them just disappeared." He's not saying this right. He shouldn't be telling her about kids who died of fucking exposure and disappeared. "But um, the elders, the said a prayer 'nd they asked for a sign. To uplift the mother's spirits, give 'em strength and hope." Carol is staring at him and he stares at the flower instead. "Next this rose started to grow, right where the mother's tears fell." He sneaks a look. Carol's staring at the flower like it has the whole world inside it.   
  
Maybe he should stop there, but it doesn't feel right. It doesn't feel like it says the right things. So he pushes on. "Ain't - M'not fool enough to think, uh, there's any flowers bloomin' for my dad." He doesn't know where else to go with that, so he leaves it. "But I think this one? Bloomed for Sophia."   
  
Carol's crying. He can't tell if it's the good kind or the bad kind and so he just sort of nods and leaves. Better to get out, in case it's the bad kind and she's pissed at him. But at the door, he stops. Looks around the RV. It's still an RV, but the inside, from what Carol's done, almost looks like a house from a story.   
  
"She's gonna really like it in here."   
  
And with that, he opens the door and is gone. 


	6. Chupacabra (Part 1)

The day after the flower, Carol's out and around again. He sees her, hanging up laundry, wringing it out. She didn't ask him if he had anything needed washing but when he looks in his tent his clothes, which he normally just leaves jumbled in a big pile in the corner, are gone and she's left a new tank top in it's place.   
  
He says new. He means new to him. It's got a stain on the front but it smells like detergent and it's soft under his fingers. There's a new shirt too, or an old one, soft with washings and age, a plaid with long sleeves, and Daryl touches them real careful, in case it's a mistake.   
  
Then he hears Rick calling out "Let's get going! We got a lotta ground to cover!" and before he can think too hard about it, he pulls on the new tank top and grabs the flannel and heads over to the Cherokee.   
  
The second he steps out he feels exposed. It's a different cut then he normally wears - normally his shirts are just tee shirts cut down, so the neck comes up decently high. This isn't like that - the arms come further in, and the sides of his chest are exposed. He's not as worried about his back - the plaid'll cover it up, and the marks back there don't stretch that wide. It's the front he's worried about - there's two lash marks that never healed good, rough and red, and they poke out over the top of his shirt. He pretends it doesn't as he pulls the plaid over him. It'll have to be enough. He could go change, he guesses, put on the same shit he's been wearing since they left the CDC, but it's soft and clean and Carol picked it for him. Of course he's going to wear it.   
  
He's just glad Shane's facing the opposite way as him as he pulls the plaid on and buttons it up.  
  
Shane's bitching again about how there's nothing at the little house that says Sophia was definitely there, but it's not like they've got any other leads to pick from. Daryl doesn't want to tell Shane about the flower. He doesn't want to tell nobody about the flower, except Carol, and maybe Sophia, when she comes back. He thinks about riding in the Jeep with her, taking her finger like he was teaching her how to find stars and instead pointing out every flower that came their way. Girls liked flowers. Maybe she'd like that.   
  
"Maybe we'll pick up her trail again," Rick says, and Daryl pushes through.   
  
"No maybe about it. I borrow a horse, head up to this ridge right here, get a bird's eye view of the whole grid. She's up there, I'll spot her."   
  
"Good idea," T-Dog says. "Maybe you'll find your chupacabra too."  
  
Daryl feels his whole face flush read, and he says nothing. He doesn't remember telling them about that. How'd they know?   
  
"Chupacabra?" Rick says. He's grinning and Daryl just nods back. Straightens his shirt.  
  
"You never heard this?" Dale says. "Our first night in camp, Daryl tells us that the whole thing reminds him of the time when he went squirrel hunting and he saw a chupacabra."  
  
Daryl hadn't said that. His dad had.  
  
Hershel's fucking farmhand laughs and Daryl glares at him.   
  
"What're you brayin' at, jackass?"  
  
The smile slips off the boy's face.   
  
"So you believe in a bloodsucking dog?" Rick says, still the hint of laughter in his voice.   
  
"You believe in dead people walkin' around?" Daryl fires back. 

Before they split up, Daryl asks the farmhand about the horses.   
  
"I kin use one, right?"  
  
The kid bites his lip. It's weird to look at someone maybe four years older and think of him as a kid. "Um. Well, I don't know. You should probably ask Hershel."  
  
Daryl's not going anywhere near Hershel. Since he heard that whole child soldier bullshit, he's stayed as far away from that bible thumper as humanly possible. Ain't nothing good could come of getting cornered by some old fart and told to repent, the end was near.   
  
Plus there's something about the old man's eyes he doesn't like. They're too sharp. And they're always watching him.   
  
"Sure," he says, and the other boy immediately relaxes. Daryl continues. "I'll tell him you're coming with us today too, right? Save you the trip."  
  
The other boy looks startled, and immediately tries to cover it. "That's all right, I already told him."  
  
"Bullshit," Daryl said. Took one to know one. No way fucking save the child warriors Hershel let's any kid under his roof roam around with an armed contingent. No fucking way.   
  
"I did!"  
  
"Then won't matter none when I tell him again!"  
  
The older boy scowls. "Fine. Whatever. Take a horse."  
  
"Obliged," Daryl says, and he starts off towards the barn.   
  
"Take the one on the far end," the farmboy yells after him. "Nell. They won't miss her."  
  
So that's exactly what Daryl does.

* * *

The first thing he thinks, when he wakes up in the crick bed, his side screaming, is that he's going to be in so much trouble.   
  
Nell is gone. Took off and left him here to die. He looks down at his side and his vision blurs and his head feels swimmy. He's been hurt before, yeah, a lot, but never something like this. Seeing an arrow poking straight through him. His vision blurs again and he wonders if he's going to faint, but he can't. He pulls his focus back in. He's got to concentrate or he'll die here. And he's not going to let that happen.   
  
First thing he does is rip the arms off his new shirt. He's afraid to pull the arrow out - what if it's stuck in something important and when he yanks the bolt his pokes a hole in his stomach or something? Ain't worth the risk. Instead, he ties the sleeves tight, as tight as he can around his waist, where the bolt enters, grunting with pain. He feels the blood start to slow down a little. That's a good sign. He grabs the doll and shoves it into his waistband. That's a good sign too.  
  
It's the last good sign. He hauls himself out of the water, starts trying to pull himself up to the top of the ridge, uses his bow, sticks, the plants jutting out from the rocks, anything to try and pull himself forward. He's sweating so much his whole face feels wet, or is that blood? Did he smash his brain open? He's almost there, he's so close, he turns back and looks down at how far he's come and not too fucking bad. But then he looks back and sees he's barely halfway.  
  
"Come on," he tells himself. He can't tell if it's the pain or it's what he's saying, but he thinks he sounds like Will Dixon. "Come on, you done half. Stop bein' such a pussy." 

The last thing he thinks, as the support underneath him gives way, is that bringing Will Dixon into anything is bound to make it go bad.

* * *

He groans with his eyes closed. He's never felt so bad in his whole life. Including the time his dad broke his arm. Even opening his eyes feels like it might just be the last step. When he hears Merle in his ear, he almost lets out a sob. Merle's here. Merle will help him. Or at least he'll try.   
  
"Why don't you pull that arrow out, dummy? You could bind your wound better."  
  
"Merle," he whispers, and he can't make his eyes open all the way. 

"What's going on here?" It's exactly what Merle would say any time he came home, from juvie or a two week long bender with his friends or when he finished boot camp or even from school, Daryl remembers very vaguely. What's going on here? And Daryl doesn't remember right away what the answer is.   
  
"Dad," he groans, and Merle tuts at him.   
  
"Wrong, kiddo. Try again." 

"Having a - a shitty day, bro."  
  
"Boy, I'd say that again. Looks like you're screwed. All them years I spent trying to make a man out of you, this is what I get? Look at you." But how can Daryl look at himself when he can barely keep his eyes open to see Merle? He forces them open as wide as he can, and Merle's face comes into focus.

Merle looks exactly like he did a two years ago when he joined the military. He hasn't changed at all. That's what tells Daryl that none of this is real, and if this isn't real, it means he's probably dying.   
  
"You're dying, little brother," Merle says, and he can almost feel Merle's big, rough hand against his forehead. "And for what?" 

"Lost a little girl," Daryl groans. He's remembering now. He tries to sit up, can't. Lays flat again.   
  
"You got a thing for little girls now?"  
  
But that's not Merle anymore. His eyes snap open and he scrabbles backwards.   
  
And Will Dixon is sitting there in front of him, grinning at him, scratching at his face with one bloody stump. 

* * *

_He's not real. And you're dying anyway, so what could he do?_

He can't do anything, it turns out. But he can say plenty.   
  
"Notice you ain't out looking for your pops no more."  
  
"Rick tried - getcha," Daryl stammers. His head is really pounding now, in time to his side.   
  
"Rick who cuffed me to that rooftop in the first place? Forced me to cut off my own damn hand? That Rick? You his bitch now?"  
  
"Ain't nobody's bitch," come out of his mouth so fast, he thinks it must be automatic. A reflex, a bodily function. Like how his adrenaline is making him see shit that's not there, is making him hear - 

"You're a joke is what you are, playing errand boy to a bunch of pansy-asses, coons and democrats." Daryl can hear the footsteps circling him, but when he moves his hand there's nothing there.

"You're nothin' but a freak to them. Redneck trash. That's all you are. They're laughing at you behind your back. You know that, don't you?" Daryl shakes his head a little, but he can't tell if he's saying it's not true or if he's saying he didn't know.

"I got a little news for you, son. One day they gonna scrape you off their heels like you was dogshit. Hey. They ain't your kin, your blood. Hell, you had any damn nuts in that sack of yours, you'd got back there and shoot your pal Rick in the face for me. Now you listen to me. Ain't nobody ever gonna care about you except me, kid. I'm your fucking father. If I can't care about you? Ain't nobody ever will."

When he opens his eyes again, Will is gone. And Merle is back again.   
  
"Let's go," he's saying, and he's tugging at Daryl's legs. He sounds concerned, like the time Daryl broke his wrist riding dirt bikes and Merle put him on his lap and rode him all the way to the free clinic. "Let's go, come on, get up on your feet before I have to kick your teeth in -"  
  
And then it's not Merle or his dad, it's a walker, two walkers, right there and he has nothing, nothing except blood in his eyes and a bow out of reach and two hallucinations and an arrow piercing his goddamn side - 

Well. At least the arrow came in useful. 

* * *

He's out again, and when he comes back he feels better. Better's still not good, but he can look at his side and bandage it without getting dizzy, and when he moves it's better not to feel it moving around inside him.  
  
"Told you," Merle says. He's standing at the side of the cliff, grinning at him. "I always told you, boy. I been around longer'n you, I know what's what, that's for sure." Daryl doesn't say anything, just keeps climbing.   
  
"What's the matter, Darylina? That all you got in you? Throw away that purse and climb."

"Liked it better when you was missing," Daryl grits out.  
  
"Come on, don't be like that. I'm on your side."  
  
"Yeah? Since when?"

Merle's smile, cocky as ever, fades a little, and for a moment he looks serious. "Hell, since the day you were born, baby brother."

"Ain't here, though," Daryl moans as he takes a bigger step then he should have.   
  
"Hell, what you call this, then?" Merle smacks at his chest. It doesn't make a noise. "Well, I'll tell you what-- I'm as real as your chupacabra."  
  
Daryl blushes. "Know what I saw," he mumbles. He's so close to the top. If he can just - 

"And I'm sure getting into dad's shroom stash had nothing to do with it?"  
  
Merle says that like Daryl was sampling Dad's wares, instead of Daryl being eight and so damn hungry he'd eat anything in the house that looked like food. Daryl's shakes his head. "You'd best shut the hell up."

"Me? Never, bro. Never."  
  
That's when he reaches the top.


	7. Chupacabra (Part 2)

When they come up on him in the field and they've all got weapons, T-Dog with a bat, Shane with that fucking pick axe, and Rick toting that fucking Colt Python, he thinks maybe him taking the horse is more serious than he thought. 

"Is that Daryl?" some says. 

"Sorry," he says. And then there's a crack and a shot and he doesn't say anything more.

He wakes up and he's being dragged across the grass and Hershel is standing at the front door and he wishes he could pass out again. 

"What happened, he's covered in -"

"It's Sophia's, it's hers, seen her with it a thousand times -"

"Is he bit? Is he bit? Where's the blood -"

"Head wounds bleed like crazy, he'll be -"

"i didn't see him, oh god, I didn't see him, I didn't -"

"Daryl? Honey, wake up. Daryl, did you see Sophia today, or just her doll?"

"Jus' th' doll," he slurs, and hears some excited muttering even still. "Jus' th' doll, I said," he repeats, in case they didn't hear them and think he really found her. 

"Daryl, take it easy, okay. We're going to get you inside, have Hershel look you over - he's gonna fix you right up, all right?"

Yeah, Hershel'll fix him right up. He's fix him right back down that cliff when he finds out Daryl lost his fucking horse. 

" 'M fine," he mumbles, and he tries to pull away from whoever's holding him. " M'okay, jus' gotta sleep it off, I'll be -"

"He's talking nonsense. Quick, he's falling, catch - "

And then he's on the best, softest bed he's ever been on before. It's cool under his head and the sheets are soft under his fingers and he remembers - his new shirts - the blood - and he tries to swing his legs over and get up but someone stops him. 

"Whoa there, son. Easy now. Where do you think you're going?"

"M'dirty," he says. He can open his eyes better now, and he looks down and sees he's already smudged the sheets with mud and blood and whatever other crap he got on his in his tussle with the walkers. He looks up and sees that Hershel is the one holding him onto the bed. 

Immediately he's out in a cold sweat and he pulls away as easily as he can when he's weak as a kitten and dumped on the softest bed in the world. Hershel frowns at him and moves his hands back, slowly. Daryl tracks them with his eyes. Feels his breathing getting quicker. 

"How's he doing, doc?" It's Rick and Shane at the door and Daryl doesn't know if he should be relieved they aren't leaving him alone with Hershel or if he should be scared that soon Shane'll hear about the horse too.

Tries to slow down his breath - he can see his chest rising and falling, see the blood soaked sides of his tank top going in and out, in and out - 

"He's a little disoriented," Hershel says slowly. "Not unexpected considering he's just been shot." 

Rick looks grim. "He didn't look great before that, though."

"No. I haven't gotten that far, but I'd say this -" he points to Daryl's side, to his shitty bandage. "-is a puncture wound. Won't know more until I can take off his shirt and clean him out. And he's got another scalp laceration here - " Hershel's fingers brush his face and Daryl flinches. "I won't rule out a concussion, with this level of disorientation."

"Right," Rick says. And then he's sitting on the side of Daryl's bed and he can feel the bed sink down and Rick's holding his hand. It's the same arm his dad broke and for one wild moment he wonders if that'll be it, if Rick will just break his arm now so that the punishment will just be over and then he can recover from everything at the same time - 

But Rick just squeezes his hand and says "Hey there, buddy. You did good today." Is Rick joking? Seldom has he had a day that he's been less good. "We just have a few questions for you real quick, then we can let you rest. We just need to know where you found the doll."

"That can wait," Hershel says. He's look at Daryl calculatingly. "I don't want to wait any longer on that puncture wound. It's a neat trick he did, but it's a rag wrapped around a rag ground in dirt. It needs looking at."

Shane says, "Couldn't we just stay in here with him and ask him some questions while you work, doc? Kill two birds with one stone, right?"

His whole body tenses up and Rick looks at him then, concerned. "You all right, Daryl? You in pain?"

He's covered in blood, how does Rick think he feels?

"I think this is a little overwhelming," Hershel says smoothly. "I think shock might be setting in. Let's give him a few minutes and I'll let you back in when we're ready."

Rick lets go of his hand reluctantly - probably wants Daryl to shout out the coordinates as he leaves the room, so they can run to the scene of the crime and trample all over any trail that might still be there - and says "Sure thing, Hershel. Daryl, we're outside if you need anything, all right?" And Rick and Shane are gone and it's just him and Hershel. 

And somehow that's worse. Hershel is looking at him with no hint of expression on his face and Daryl's stomach roils and tightens as he tries to figure out if there's anything he can say that will make this better, or if him and his famous fucking mouth are just delaying the inevitable. 

" 'M sorry," he finally settles on. It doesn't get any reaction. 

"Quite," Hershel says. "Let's get you sitting up now. We've just got to take this off and I'll be able to take a closer look."

Hershel is tugging at his shirt. What's left of it anyway. Daryl lets him undo the bandage, strip off the plaid, and it's only when Hershel is working on his undershirt Daryl realizes what he's doing.

"Should wait," he mumbles, and Hershel gets a pair of scissors and is cutting through the fabric. 

"Wait for what?" Hershel asks. 

"When I'm better. Die if you do too much now."

"Nobody is going to die."

He's not listening, but Daryl figures in that case it's best to give up. If he isn't listening now, trying to make him understand will only make him madder. He's going to do what he wants anyway. If he wants to whup him when he's bleeding out of a million places already, oh well. That's his choice. 

And he's a doctor. Well, a vet. He probably won't kill Daryl on purpose.

"Why don't you walk me through how all this happened." Hershel's voice is smooth and a cool, wet cloth is wiping down his side where the arrow went in. Sweat pops out on Daryl's forehead. Hershel frowns. "Maybe sitting up is too much. Why don't you lie down on your side for me."

Daryl doesn't want to do that. It's bad enough sitting shirtless in there without laying on one side so Hershel can see all the shit all over his back. His front is bad enough, but the marks there are fainter, weirder. They don't tell such a clear story. Daryl doesn't even remember anymore what most of them are from. But still better then his chest. He wishes Hershel'd just give him some rubbing alcohol and fuck off, and he thinks about telling the man so. But he's pushed his luck enough today so he starts to roll over. Daryl tries to make it so his chest is facing the man, but Hershel's hands stop him gently and correct his path. "Other side," he says simply, like it's a common mistake to try and put your wound mattress side down when being cared for by a doctor. 

He turns to the other side, and the only good thing about this position is he can't see Hershel's face when he sees his back. Otherwise, it's terrible. He back is to the door, exposed, anyone could come in and see, and Hershel -

Hershel isn't saying anything. But after a long moment of stillness, he starts cleaning out the wound again, and Daryl tries to relax. Or at least unclench. 

"How'd this happen?" He can't tell what Hershel's asking about, the puncture wound or the cut on his head or maybe something else Daryl'd missed. He thinks maybe he does have a concussion or something - things don't feel like they're making as much sense as they normally do.

"Lost your horse," he blurts out. "Sorry."

"Ah yes, Nellie. As in Nervous Nellie. Could have told you'd she'd throw you, if you'd bothered to ask. We'll talk about her later." Something dark winds through his stomach at that. "She threw you, then?"

"Yeah."

"And you landed on what?"

"My bolt," he grits out. The cleaning of his wound on his side is starting to hurt a little. 

"Ouch." Daryl sneaks a look at Hershel's face - 'ouch' feels like kind of an understatement - but his face is the same blank, placid screen it was when they started talking. "Is that when you hit your head?"

Daryl frowns. "Don' 'member if it was the first'r second time."

"You were able to get back on Nellie after she threw you?"

"No. The second time I fell down the cliff."

The cleaning stops. 

"I beg your pardon?"

"I - well when she threw me I fell down to the crick - oh, it wadn't a real cliff," he explains, thinking he's figured out where Hershel's getting confused. " 'S'just a slope, steep, loose dirt and shit - stuff," he says quick. Hershel isn't like Carol. Daryl's not sure if he knows the difference between being cussed in front of and being cussed at. "Was almos' at the top when the fu - when the ground give up." He hisses as Hershel pokes at something back there. "Then I hadda do it all 'gain."

Daryl doesn't know what to do with the silence from behind him. 

"Rick says your father's dead?"

"Ain't dead, just gone," he snaps, and he tries not to think about today. _Nothing but a freak to them. Redneck trash._

"I see." The cloth is gone and Hershel hesitates behind him. "We don't have any anesthetic left. Any painkillers. We've used them on Carl and your man with the cut."   
  
Daryl's not sure where this is going.   
  
"The less you can move, the better. This might sting some."   
  
And it does.   
  
They don't talk anymore when Hershel is stitching him up. Feeling a needle and thread pushing through his skin hurts in a way he's never felt before, and he just wants to wriggle away, get out of here, go lick his wounds somewhere private. He's got his lips pressed so tight together he wonders if he'll bite them off, but even still an occasional grunt or a moan breaks through. He switches tactics, starts biting at his thumb, feels tears pricking at his eyes and bites down harder.   
  
"You're doing good," Hershel says behind him. "You're doing great. Almost done."  
  
Why these people keep telling him how good he's doing when he lost their horse and stabbed himself and slammed his head and didn't even find Sophia?   
  
"There." Hershel's hands are gone and Daryl makes as if to scoot down, off the bed, away -

But Hershel's hands are back on his shoulders and he freezes. His head and his side is throbbing in time and he doesn't know what the hell this man wants from him.   
  
"Hold up there. Still got your head to look at."  
  
He feels like a fucking mummy, Hershel wrapping what feels like a whole fucking sheet over his forehead, but the tightness of the bandage feels sort of good. Comforting. It stops throbbing so bad, and Daryl closes his eyes. He's exhausted all of a sudden, and all he wants is to go curl up in his tent and sleep for a million years.   
  
"I done?" he bites out, because let's get all this shit over with. Let's get the fucking niceties out of the way and finish this so Daryl can go sleep.  
  
"Almost." And he almost jumps out of his skin when Hershel's fingers poke around at his back. He moves as far as he can away, almost to the edge of the bed.  
  
"Ain't - ain't from t'day. S'fine," he says, but Hershel's fingers don't stop. "I said 's'fine!" Daryl snaps, and he makes to sit up and almost falls off the bed, he's so dizzy. Hershel helps him back over and Daryl rolls onto his back. Stares up at the ceiling.   
  
"How old are you, son?"  
  
"Ain't your son." Hershel doesn't say anything. Waits. " 'Most fifteen."   
  
"I was fifteen when I left home. Never thought I'd end up back here."   
  
Daryl doesn't say anything. He had a house like this, a farm, land, fucking stable of horses and fifty heads of cattle, the woods, he'd hole up here and never leave. Hershel's kind ain't nothing like him.  
  
"You happy with these people, Daryl?"   
  
Daryl squints over his shoulder at the man. He's not sure what happy really means, with the dead walking around all over and Sophia missing and his dad running around with his arm chopped off somewhere. He shrugs. Hisses as it pulls at his side.   
  
"You're going to have to quit that for a day or two. Pulls at your stitches. You'll have to use your words."   
  
( _Use your goddamn words, you mute fuck, you too stupid to fucking say anything_ -)  
  
"Daryl. Rick and his people. They treat you all right?"  
  
Daryl gets what Hershel's trying to say and he grimaces.   
  
"Wadn't them," he mutters. Stares at the ceiling. Even the ceiling is fancier than anything he's ever seen before. "They're old."  
  
"That's not what I asked." A pause. "Rick and Shane and them, they take good care of you?"  
  
Daryl doesn't say anything. "Rick's a'right," he finally mumbles.   
  
( _You his bitch now?_ )

"And Shane? The others?"  
  
"Carol's nice," he allows, staring at the ceiling. He's not going to talk about Shane. He hasn't done anything since the CDC and maybe he won't again, but he definitely will if Daryl spills his shit to some fucking doctor.

"Don' need no takin' care of, anyway. 'Most fifteen, can take care'a myself."

"Yes, today makes that abundantly clear," Hershel says dryly, and Daryl tenses.   
  
"You gonna whup me, fuckin' do it already," he spits. He's tired of this man and his hands and his questions, he's so tired. He misses his father suddenly, piercingly. Things with his dad were loud and rough and they changed but Daryl still knew mostly what to expect. In this new world where the dead walk around, it's like he doesn't know any of the rules anymore, and that makes him more tired than anything. He glares at Hershel whose face is still.   
  
"Why would I do that?"  
  
"Lost your horse, din't I?" He pushes himself up, and Hershel's hands are pinning him back down, not hard, but firm, and Daryl knows what's coming. He bucks his shoulders, tries to get Hershel away. "Best let me go!"  
  
"I don't think I will. I just spent a lot of time putting you back together. I'm not going to let you take yourself apart."  
  
"Either whup me or let me be a'ready - don' need charity from no pansy ass rich doctor fuck." He bares his teeth and steels himself.   
  
And nothing happens.   
  
"Let me see your head." Daryl flinches as he sees movement out of the corner of his vision, but Hershel just takes his chin, manipulates his head.   
  
"That head wounds opened up again. Think you'll need stitches there too."

Daryl closes his eyes. Nothing in this world makes any fucking sense anymore.

* * *

Hershel just stitches him up and goes to get Rick and Shane. Daryl lays flat on his back on the bed, even though that makes the bandaged spot on his side ache, and he pulls the blanket as high up as he can. He'd rather they gave him back his clothes, but he's not going to ask fucking Hershel for anything. If he pulls it up to his armpits, it hides most of what was already hidden by his clothes anyway.   
  
So he's surprised when Hershel comes back in with a zip up sweatshirt and tosses it to the end of the bed.   
  
"My step-son Shawn's," Hershel says quietly. "So I'll thank you to take care of it. No ripping it up for a tourniquet or anything."  
  
Daryl scoffs - he needs a tourniquet, he'll rip up anything he can find. But he nods as he takes the sweatshirt. It's too big for him which is good - it doesn't mess with any of his bandages, and when he zips it up it almost swallows him whole.   
  
Daryl swallows - he should give it back. It's charity and Dixon's don't take charity and they don't give it. But he can't quite bring himself to. So he just looks at the zipper and doesn't say anything.  
  
"Rick and Shane are here with the map. You ready for them?"  
  
Daryl nods and it sets his head to fucking pounding.   
  
"Careful. You feel bad, you tell them you need a break. Understand?"  
  
Daryl grunts, and then Rick and Shane are there. He thinks Hershel will leave, but he doesn't. He goes by the window, looks out like he's not paying any attention to them. Like he hasn't got eight million windows in his palatial farmhouse to stare out of, he needs this one, right now.  
  
Rick is smiling at him and Daryl just blinks. He's got a rolled up map in his hand and he sits on the edge of the bed again. Daryl feels it dip under his weight.   
  
"Hey there, Daryl. How you feeling?"  
  
Shane's right behind him. Sits on the old rocker in the corner. Stares at Daryl.

"Fine," he says finally.   
  
"Gave us a little scare there coming in."  
  
Oh. They'd thought he was a walker. That's probably why they'd tried to shoot him. Or does Rick mean something different?

"You think you got enough in you to show us where you found that doll?"  
  
"Hope so," Shane mumbles from the chair.   
  
"Yeah," Daryl says, and he pushes himself up on his elbows, glad for the sweatshirt covering him.   
  
Rick rolls out the map. It's strange looking at it from above - it takes him a minute to orient himself. He traces the path he took with the horse to the crick, squints at it. The pokes a finger down near a bend in it.  
  
"Found it washed up on the crick bed. Right there. Musta dropped it crossin' or somewhere."  
  
Rick's staring at the map. "Cuts the grid almost in half," he says, marking the spot with a pencil.  
  
"You're welcome," Daryl shoots at Shane, whose still just sitting in that fucking rocker, staring.   
  
"How's he looking, Hershel?" Rick asks, and Hershel turns back around from the window. Scrutinizes Daryl.  
  
"I had no idea we'd be going through the antibiotics so quickly," he says, and Daryl frowns.   
  
"Don' need - got some antibiotics. In my bag. I can get it," he says quickly when Rick looks like he's about to send Shane for the bag. He looks at Hershel, then looks somewhere over Hershel's left shoulder. "Can pay you back."  
  
"Payment isn't necessary," Hershel says firmly. "Though if you have anything in there you don't need, I'll certainly take it for our dispensary."  
  
"Can get it later."  
  
"What're you doing running around with antibiotics?" Shane asks from the chair.   
  
"They're m'dad's. Just holdin' onto 'em."   
  
Hershel cracks a smile then. "Ah. The infamous venereal disease."  
  
Shane and Rick are looking like Hershel like he's nuts, and Daryl just doesn't know what the fuck he's saying. The fuck's a venereal disease?   
  
But then Hershel is serious and is looking at Rick. "It's a wonder you people have survived this long," he says, and Daryl bristles. Daryl's survived this long, survived his whole life, without snooty fucking doctors or nosy fucking cops. He doesn't need Rick for any of that. "Sending a boy out to do a man's job -"  
  
Rick looks a little ashamed, but he says "Send out the best person for the job, that's all. In this case, that's Daryl."

"Well. I wouldn't send anyone else out until you have a larger supply of antibiotics and a better idea of what you're all doing," Hershel says. He spins on his heel and walks away and he's alone with Rick and Shane.  
  
"I'm sorry, Daryl. For what happened. I shouldn't have -"  
  
"Daryl shouldn't have stolen that horse," Shane says. "Nervous Nellie. That's not on you, Rick."  
  
That's not on Daryl either. He didn't steal it, he's not a thief. He asked the fucking farmhand. Although maybe Shane means because he lost the horse. That sort of is like he stole it. Maybe when he's better he can go look for her, if Hershel hasn't whupped him too hard to go out again -

"Still. Hershel's right. We're asking a lot of you. It ain't fair."  
  
Daryl scowls. "Ain't doin' none of it for you. Wouldn' do it if you asked me. Doin' it for Sophia."  
  
Rick smiles at him, a soft smile, and leans forward. He gives Daryl's hand another squeeze.   
  
"How you feeling for visitors, bud? Got a line of ladies outside your door." He laughs when Daryl's nose wrinkles. "Well, Lori and Andrea."  
  
He's so tired all of a sudden he can barely keep his eyes open. Rick seems to be able to tell.   
  
"I'll tell 'em to come see you tomorrow. Let you get your rest. Come on, Shane." And Rick opens the door and is out in the hallway, Shane right behind him, without even a second glance at Daryl.   
  
"He'll be all right," he hears Rick say to somebody, and then the door closes and it gets more muffled.   
  
"- can't keep going out there - not after this -"  
  
"Daryl just risked his life to bring back the first hard evidence we've had -"  
  
"- Daryl almost died today for a doll -"

Footsteps, then Lori's voice, low. "- easiest thing in the world to cut our losses -"  
  
"Only thing I care about now in this world is you and Carl." Daryl's eyes pop open at that. He'd thought it was Rick still in the hallway with Lori, but it's not. It's Shane. He wonders if Lori's all right out there, if Shane's got her pinned against a wall. Probably not, not in Hershel's house, not with so many people around. He could go out there but he thinks he'd collapse before he even got to the door and he'd never be able to outrun Shane like this. " - apologize if I appear to be insensitive to the needs of others - keep the two of you safe."

"Even abandoning a lost child? Really?" He doesn't hear the answer to that, and maybe there isn't one, but he doesn't know because he can't fight it anymore and he's asleep, deeper asleep than he's ever been.

* * *

He doesn't wake up until later. The sun's gone outside his window and someone's lit the lamp next to his bed and he feels sweaty and hot, asleep in the sweatshirt. He's struggling out of it, the fuzzy inside sticking to his clammy skin, and he finally succeeds and tosses it at the end of the bed when the door creaks and Carol comes in.   
  
He'd go for the sweatshirt but his side it twinging too bad so he just grabs the sheet and pulls it up as high as he can. It doesn't cover enough and he feels his hands plucking at it, trying to find the best coverage, and he turns on his side and faces the wall so he won't have to see Carol's face when she sees how torn up his back is.   
  
"How you feeling?" she asks. She's putting something down on the nightstand and he peeks over his shoulder quick to see. She's got a tray of food, ham and mashed potatoes and green beans, like it's a TV Christmas special or some shit. There's even a wine glass with something red in it, and he looks away, quick.  
  
"Bout as good as I look," he grunts. She's quiet.   
  
"Brough you some dinner. You must be starving."  
  
He is, surprisingly - when he remembers how to arrow looked sticking straight through him he feels sick, but he's hungry enough not to care. He peeks over his shoulder again at the food. At the wine glass.  
  
Carol follows his eyes. "Like in a hotel," she says. "Room service. Ham, potatoes, green beans, cranberry juice. All served in bed. Better than a restaurant."  
  
Something he didn't know he was feeling sinks out of him. He thought maybe they were all out there drinking wine, getting trashed like at the CDC, and he's here laid up and anyone could get to him - 

Then all of a sudden Carol's over him and he can't stop himself from flinching back, from trying to figure out where to go - maybe she's mad he only found the doll, maybe she's mad he got all fucked up and couldn't keep going and find Sophia - but all she does is drop a kiss to his temple, right below his bandages. Her lips are cool and dry and it's the first kiss he thinks he's ever had that didn't smell like booze.  
  
He's staring at her, he knows, the sheet all clutched up around his chest, and he doesn't know what to do. So he just tugs at the sheet, turns away.   
  
"Watch out," he grumbles. "I got stitches." His heart is pounding in his chest and he doesn't know what to do, he doesn't know how to react, nothing's ever normal anymore and he doesn't -  
  
"You need to know something," Carol says, and she sounds serious. He stares at her, half full of dread. This is it. This is when she tells him off good for not finding her yet.   
  
"You did more for my little girl today," she says, her voice low, her eyes fixed on him so he can't look away, can just stare at her, "Then her own daddy ever did in his whole life."  
  
And he's staring, staring and he rolls back over, pulls at the sheet. "Din't do nothin' Rick wouldna done." He doesn't add Shane. Remembers the voices in the hallway, the silence after "Even abandoning a lost child?"  
  
"I know, Carol says simply. "You're every bit as good as him. Every bit." 

And then she's gone, closes the door behind her, and he closes his eyes and tries to breathe.   
  
It's not until he wakes up in the morning and the plate of food is still there on the nightstand, stone cold, that he realizes it wasn't a dream.


	8. Secrets

Weirdly, he likes Andrea more now that she's tried to shoot him.   
  
He gets out of Hershel's house as early as he can - before Hershel can even check on him again. He eats the cold ham hock, the congealed potatoes, and it's still nicer than anything he's had in ages. He's better in his tent - he opens the flaps and takes the cover off so the air can get in and he lays there, drowsing, til Andrea shows up.   
  
"Hey," she says. She hovers outside his tent and he looks at her, and something in his gaze must seem like assent, because she ducks inside. Sits next to him. She's looking at his head, his side, the bundle of clothes in the corner, the pillow under his head Carol gave him from the RV.   
  
"This is - not that great, but -" And she holds out a book to him. "I thought - boys like mysteries, right?"  
  
The Case of the Missing Man. He looks at the cover, the back flap. Thinks about Merle and his dad, missing but out in the woods with him yesterday. Thinks about Sophia, but she ain't missing. She just hasn't been found yet.   
  
"What, no pictures?" he says. Andrea, to his surprise, grins at him.   
  
"I - Daryl, I'm so sorry. If I'd known it was you, I would have never - I feel like -"  
  
"Shit?" he offers up. She looks surprised. "Me too."  
  
"I don't expect you to forgive me," she says, and she's looking straight at him for maybe the first time.   
"But if there's anything I can do..."  
  
"We're good," he says.   
  
"Daryl. I shot you. We can't just be -"  
  
"Hardly grazed me," he mumbles, and he looks at the arrow in his hand. He'd done a lot worse to himself than Andrea had done to him. He looks back at her, meets her gaze. "You were tryin' to protect the group. We're good."  
  
She smiles at him again and then she leaves and he's glad. Best thing she could do is not make him have to have a whole fucking conversation.   
  
"But hey," he calls after her. "You shoot me again, you best pray I'm dead!"  
  
He hears her laughing as she steps into the RV.

* * *

Shane and Rick and them go out - target practice, gun training, looking for Sophia, but before he even tries to join he gets a stern look from Rick and he decides he'll just chill in his tent instead. He reads a little of the book Andrea brought - she's right, it sucks - and he looks for a while at Call of the Wild, which he'd shoved in his bag at the CDC. Carol had said Sophia might like it too. He tucks it away. He can wait.   
  
But he's bored and he's not good at doing nothing. That's why he likes tracking - it's never doing nothing, it's always looking or following or trying to be quiet. His dad liked to hunt in blinds sometimes, in winter when he just wanted to sit in the woods and wait and drink, and Daryl hated it because he was stuck with nothing to do in a box with his dad and a bottle of booze. No way that was ever going to end good.   
  
So he'll take a walk, he thinks. Walk is good. Easy. But he can't just lay here all day and let his muscles atrophy or whatever. He'll take a walk. 

He finds his way to the stables and he knows it's a bad idea. Just because he can move around doesn't mean he's ready to get punished just yet, and being near the horses is bound to remind everyone about Nellie. He's about to leave when he hears Hershel in there, talking to somebody, and he doubles back behind the door.  
  
"Rick is a man of conscience. Can you say the same for everyone in your group?"  
  
Daryl bites his thumb and thinks hard about that question.   
  
He hears the opposite end doors to the stable swing open, hears footsteps walk away. He counts to sixty three times, then pokes his head into the barn. 

Three minutes ain't ever long enough. Hershel's there, inside, a horse out of its stall, and he's currying it, moving the brush in circular motions. Daryl recognizes the horse - it's fucking Nellie.   
  
The relief in his stomach is huge. The punishment for borrowing a horse had to be a hundred times better than the one for stealing one.   
  
He doesn't head out again in time, and Hershel looks up. His mouth twists a little into a bitter smile.   
  
"Man can't even find privacy on his own land anymore."   
  
"Kin go," Daryl says immediately, and starts to back away.   
  
"Stop." Daryl freezes. Hershel doesn't stop combing the horse. Doesn't even look at Daryl.  
  
"You shouldn't be up and about so soon. You'll strain yourself. Set your recovery back."  
  
" 'M fine."  
  
"You will be, because you're going to go to the front porch and sit there today where I can keep an eye on you."  
  
Daryl scoffs. "Kin go back to my tent. Don't need nobody babysittin' me."  
  
Hershel just looks at him, and Daryl scowls. Stares at the horse.  
  
"How'd you find her?"  
  
"She came back. She always does. Found her in her stall this morning."  
  
"She - she a'right?" Daryl asks, and for a moment he's scared of the answer. If there's anything wrong with her, if she's hurt - 

"This girl? Found her a clover field somewhere, went to town. She's happy as a clam."  
  
Daryl lets out a breath.   
  
"Where'd you learn to ride?"   
  
He bristles. "What, cause I'm trash can't never have seen a horse before?"   
  
"No, but for you to stay on her that long means you know a little something. I've seen her spook not two feet from her own paddock. For you to get out to the creek says something."  
  
Daryl shrugs. "Ain't nobody never taught me or nothin'. Just picked it up." There was a guy near school had horses - working horses, placid but occasionally bitey - and they'd dared each other for years to sneak into the paddock and hop on. Daryl'd done that a fair amount - he'd done it since he was seven, Merle dragging him along one time and plopping him on a pony - but sometimes, when he was alone, he'd even go by there and just look at them. Pet their velvety noses, feed them. He couldn't often spare an apple but he'd rip up grass from outside the paddock and bring it to them. Like a treat. Something different.  
  
Hershel finishes with Nellie and leads her back to her stall. She swishes her tale as she goes in, and Hershel looks at Daryl.   
  
"Well?"  
  
"Well what?"  
  
"Are you going to go park yourself on my porch?"   
  
Daryl feels his shoulders tighten. "Ain't my dad," he grumbles. "Can't make me do nothin'."  
  
"And how does you father make you do things?"  
  
Hershel is taking another horse out, not looking at Daryl, but Daryl's mad. He shoves it down.  
  
"Ain't what I said. Puttin' words in my mouth."  
  
"I can rephrase the question."  
  
But before he can Daryl answers it, in his own way. Who knows if he'd like the next question any better. "He's the authority, tha's all. Head of the house. Like in the Bible, right?" He's not actually sure if that's in the Bible, but sounds like it fits, and a biblethumper like Hershel probably likes that answer.   
  
"Sounds like he and I read two different books."  
  
And then Daryl's mad, he's losing it, but not yelling - not near all those horses, that'd be a bad idea. But he feels the anger leaking out of his skin and he knows the time he could have walked off to the porch was long gone.   
  
"You ain't even met him. Hell if Rick an' them wanna think he's trash, s'their opinion. Ain't right but whatever, that's what they saw. But you don't even know him, never even saw 'im, so shut your fuckin' mouth about him!"

Hershel has stopped combing and Daryl's mouth goes dry. Why didn't he just go to the fucking house, stupid, his fucking mouth, always - there's tack all over the walls, reins and bridles and lead ropes, him and his stupid fucking mouth.

But Hershel just starts combing the horse again. Slow, deliberate motions.   
  
"That's not the Bible I read," Hershel just says again. "Sounds an awful lot like the one my father followed, though."  
  
Daryl doesn't move. Watches Hershel finish the second horse. Lead her back to her stall. The next time Hershel looks up, Daryl's gone. 

* * *

He doesn't go to the porch. He's not a fucking baby and he doesn't give a shit what Hershel says. But he goes to the side of the house, where there's some tree cover, and he lays down there a while. The grass is thick and lush and almost like a pillow, and the sun on his face makes him drowsy.   
  
He's laying there when he suddenly hears, "Daryl!" And Carl is bounding over to him, Rick's sheriff hat clamped onto his head.   
  
"Look what my dad gave me! Isn't it cool? We had to put stuff on the inside so it wouldn't fall off, but it means that when I'm bigger, I can just take that stuff out and the hat will still fit." Carl pulls the hat off his head. "Want to try it on?"  
  
"Naw man, I'm good." Carl's face falls a little. "Just - my head's bigger'n yours. Don't want to mess up your sizing none."  
  
"Oh, right." Carl puts the hat back on his head. "It's because we've both been shot. That's why he gave it to me."  
  
Daryl nods. Squints up at him in the sunlight. "How you feelin', man?" he asks, awkwardly. With Daryl trying to keep as far from the house as possible and Carl only recently allowed to leave it, he hasn't seen Carl really since they all trooped out to the woods together to look for Sophia. It feels like years ago.  
  
"Good. I mean - I don't know. Good." Carl plops down on the grass next to him, starts yanking on it. "I mean - still hurts and stuff, but. I just did gun training with Shane and my dad and everyone and they said I did really good. Like, really good because I'm still recovering, but also that I've got good aim and stuff."  
  
Daryl grunts.   
  
"Are you going to come? Shane said he'd take me just myself sometime, I bet he'd take you too if we asked -"  
  
"Don't need no gun training," Daryl says quickly, and Carl looks hurt. "Just mean - use my bow, you know." Carl's nodding.   
  
"Yeah. It's so cool. Will you show me how to use it sometime?"  
  
Daryl shrugs.   
  
"Maybe when Sophia is back, you could show both of us. Sophia thinks it's cool too. She said it was like Robin Hood."  
  
He nods at Carl. "Yeah. Maybe, yeah."  
  
"I think it'll be one of us who finds her."   
  
And he looks at Carl, his round, shining face under that stupid hat, and he says, "Yeah, man. One of us."  
  
And he goes back to his tent.

* * *

He must have fallen asleep because he wakes up and the light is different, lower, and outside his tent, people are fighting.  
  
"- plenty of fuel - get far from here -"  
  
"- you telling me to leave?"  
  
"- now is a good time -"  
  
He hears Shane laugh. "This about Andrea?"

Daryl wonders if what happened to Lori in the CDC has happened to Andrea.  
  
"I'm looking out for the group."  
  
"Think the group'd be better off without me, Dale?" Daryl curls himself into a ball but that hurts his stitches so he stops. Tries to lie flat. Tries not to breathe. "Why don't you tell that to Rick or Lori? Their boy'd be dead if I hadn't put my ass on the line."  
  
"And Otis's."  
  
Footsteps. They're moving away from his tent and he tries to breathe a sigh of relief.   
  
"I know what kind of man you are," he hears Dale say, and he thinks it's the stupidest thing Dale's ever done. Dale's old and slow and Shane's whispering at him now, some low and rough and fierce, and someone laughs up at the house and there's footsteps and it's over.   
  
Or he thinks it is until the door of his tent zips open and Shane's yanking him out.  
  
"The fuck I say," Shane whispers, that same bad whisper he just used to Dale, "About spying on me?"  
  
No one is there. How in their camp, their tents side to side, the RV blocking them in, how is no one there?  
  
"Wasn't," he says quickly. Shane's got a rough hand around his arm, the same side as his arrow wound, and it hurts. "Man, I wasn't, I was asleep, get off me -"  
  
"Fucking think you can do whatever you want? Think you can put your nose in my business, in Lori's? That what you think?"  
  
Lori wasn't even out there, Daryl wants to point out, and they'd stopped in front of his tent. He hadn't made them do nothing. He was asleep, for chrissake, what was he meant to have done different? But he doesn't say anything. Knows anything he says is just going to make Shane madder, and the only way out of this is -  
  
Shane's dragging him so fast Daryl's feet are tripping over the ground trying to keep up. "Man I din't do anything I swear I -"  
  
They're back at the stables. Hershel, he thinks, Hershel will - but that was hours ago and the stables are empty except for the horses, and Shane shoves him inside and closes the door behind them.   
  
There are two sets of doors. That's good. But he's shaky and his side is throbbing and his head and Shane was so fucking fast last time.   
  
"You and me," Shane says. "I think we need to have us a little talk."

* * *

When he gets back for dinner it's quiet. They're back to eating outside, which Daryl's glad of because dinner in the big house makes him want to puke.

Carol's stirring the pot with a disappointed face and he thinks it's probably not about the chili and more about the fact that there's no Sophia by the fire.   
  
"Hey Daryl - where've you been? You should be taking it easy," she says, sniffing once.   
  
" 'M tired," he says roughly. " 'M going to my tent."  
  
"All right - you want to take some dinner with you, or you want me to save it?"  
  
"Ain't hungry. Y'all can have it."  
  
"You've got to keep your strength up, if you want to get better," he hears Carol say when he's almost at his tent, and he whips around so fast his side burns and his back aches.  
  
"Fuck, lady, what'd I just say? I ain't hungry!"   
  
And before he can see what he's done to Carol's face, he ducks into his tent, zips himself in, and waits there, staring at the mesh ceiling, until morning. 


	9. Pretty Much Dead Already (Part 1)

The next morning he's hungry enough that he emerges from his tent for breakfast. Carol's doing it - he can't tell if he's annoyed how the others make her do all the chores, or if he's glad she's out of the RV and doing stuff again. She's doling out eggs and sausage to everyone and when Daryl comes out of his tent she looks up at him and hands him a plate without saying anything. And a real plate, too - a whole heap of eggs, a patty of sausage, and he feels guilt in his gut as he takes it from here.   
  
"Thanks," he grunts out. He doesn't get any farther than that, can't shove out the apology he knows he should say, but Carol looks at him like she heard it anyway.   
  
"Take the chair," she says back to him. "You've still got to take it easy."

He's not sure if he wants the chair - it's not like it's so comfortable in the best of times, and after his misadventure at the crick and his conversation with Shane his side and back are throbbing in time to his heartbeat. But he knows she's trying to be nice so he sits. Starts shoveling in the eggs. They taste better than T-Dog's.  
  
It's quiet at breakfast - he thinks most of these people aren't morning people, or weren't before, and everyone seems wrapped up in their own problems. Rick and Lori are next to each other, practically sitting in each other's laps, and Daryl makes sure to look away quick. He doesn't want Shane thinking he has any interest in what Lori does.   
  
Shane's across the campsite, standing up, staring at Lori enough for all of them anyway.

Daryl's thinking about whether or not he wants to dip into his Dad's stash for a painkiller - not a whole one, or one of the really strong ones, but something - when Glenn stands up, face solemn under his dumb baseball hat.   
  
"The barn is full of walkers," he says. And holy hell breaks loose.

* * *

Shane had seemed less edgy last night after he finished with Daryl. Like Daryl's dad, he'd seemed calmer when he'd gotten it all out. That's all gone now as he practically presses his face against the split in the boards of the barn and stares at the walkers.   
  
They've all gone out there and Daryl wonders how they hadn't noticed it before - there's a low noise coming from the barn, an almost hum of snarls and shuffles, and a faint sour stink in the air. But maybe they just didn't want to see.   
  
Daryl's biting his thumb as Shane loses it in front of everything, pacing back and forth, the stubble on his shaved head glistening with sweat even in the early day sun.   
  
"We've got to make things right or we've just got to go."  
  
Daryl's head whips at Shane and he feels that anger building up in his stomach. Fuck Shane, his fucking stupid face, his queerass necklace, his hands which he flings around as he tells them to pull up sticks and abandon Sophia. Shane can do whatever the fuck he wants with Daryl, whatever, Daryl's tough. He can take it. Shane ain't nothing new. But Sophia hadn't done anything to him. Nothing at all. 

"We can't go."  
  
"Why, Rick? Why?"  
  
Carol's the one who says it and she sounds mad too and Daryl is glad, glad she can yell at him, but also why don't any of the others say that? Why is Carol the only one standing up to Shane?  
  
"Because my daughter's still out there," she says firmly, and Shane practically laughs at her and Daryl feels his fists clench.  
  
"I think it's time we all start to consider the other possibility -"

Rick is yelling at Shane too but Daryl's mad. He's going to lose it, he thinks, he's going to lose it at Shane after last night and he's doesn't even try to pull himself back.

"I'm close to findin' her!" he shouts at Shane, fists clenched so hard he can feel his fingernails digging into his palm. Let Shane fucking come at him, he doesn't care, he'll pound him, he'll - "I just found her damn doll two days ago!"  
  
And now Shane is laughing at him, like he's stupid, like he's weak, and it's all Daryl can do not to try and tackle him. But he remembers the chokehold back at the camp, how fast Shane is, and his side is pulsing with pain -

"You found her _doll_ , Daryl. That's what you did, you found a _doll_."

It's too much. "You don't know what the hell you're talkin' about!" he yells, and he's going for Shane and everyone is looking at him, Lori is looking at him and he feels Carol watching him but then there's Rick's arm, blocking him off, and he shies away before he touches it. Backs up, tries to get his breathing under control.   
  
"Let me tell you something else, kid. If she was alive out there, saw you coming, all methed out with your buck knife and covered in blood, she would run in the other direction!" 

And Daryl doesn't try to get under control anymore. Rick's in the middle but Daryl can get around him, has to, as he shoves at him, rage bubbling under his skin and around his eyes and burning out the pain from his side. He's yelling, he's not sure what, and the others are yelling too, Rick and them yelling stop, calm down, don't -

And Shane he hears over all of them, as Glenn and Rick and Lori and Andrea build a wall of bodies between the two of them, separate them. "Boy, don't you come at me! I'll beat your ass, boy!"  
  
"Shane!" Lori finally says, and Shane pulls away and he's pacing, and Daryl's there behind Andrea, not trying to get at Shane anymore but nowhere for all this anger to go except out as he shifts back and forth, runs his hands over his hair.   
  
Carol is behind him, he realizes suddenly, and he can feel her wanting to do something - put her hand on his shoulder, maybe smooth his hair like she did with Sophia. He doesn't want any of that. He's not a fucking kid. So he just keeps moving as Dale steps in and everyone tries to figure out what to do with the walkers, when Daryl thinks what's actually clear is someone needs to figure out what to do with Shane. 

Shane doesn't stop yelling until the barn doors start to rattle.

* * *

He's getting his gear together in his tent - he did take a painkiller, just a half of one, and it's made the palm slow but it hasn't done anything for his anger and he has to get out of there. He's going to go find Sophia and bring her back and shove her in Shane's fucking face - 

Not literally. He won't let Shane anywhere near her. But he'll show him, what a coward he is, how weak. He'll fucking show him.   
  
He can hear Lori and Carl at the table, Carl with that fucking math workbook.   
  
"Does Shane think Sophia's dead?"  
  
"Shane's just scared."   
  
"Mom - I'm not leaving until we find Sophia. And I don't want to go even after that."  
  
"We're not leaving, Carl. Now finish those problems."  
  
"I just think - she - she's gonna like it here. This place. It could be a home."  
  
He makes his way back to the stables. Grabs a saddle. It pulls at his side, at the bruises on his back. He grunts, almost drops it. He shouldn't be back here. Hershel hasn't even done anything about taking Nellie yet and now Daryl's already going and borrowing another horse. But he'll be better this time. He's picking one of the ones he saw Hershel curry, a strawberry roan, placid, kind eyes. And if Hershel want's to smack him around, whatever. Get in line. He'll take whatever lickings are necessary to just get Sophia back home. 

"You can't," someone says. And it's Carol. She's coming for him quick and for a minute he thinks she's warning him. You can't, Hershel's coming, you'll get in trouble - 

But then he realizes she's talking about his fucking injury, like he's some kind of baby. "I'm fine."

"Hershel said you need to heal."

"Yeah, I don't care," he mutters, sifting through bridles, looking for the right one. 

"Well, I do." He doesn't know what to do with that so he swings the stall door open, goes in.   
  
"Ain't gonna sit around an' do nothin'."  
  
"No, you're gonna go out there and get yourself hurt even worse." She thinks Hershel's gonna tar him too. Shit. Well, whatever. Ain't nothing he can't deal with.   
  
"We don't know if we're gonna find her, Daryl."  
  
And he stops and he turns around and Carol is looking at him, her eyes piercing into him, and she looks lost for a second. "We don't." She swallows, and the next bit comes out as a whisper. "I don't."  
  
"What?" He can't believe she's saying this. What is she saying? She's giving up? She thinks Sophia's dead? She's siding with Shane over him, Shane who just fucking screamed his head off out there, Shane who is no different then Ed or Will Dixon or anyone, can't she see that?  
  
She looks like she's about to cry, and she shifts back and forth. "Can't lose you too," she says simply.   
  
And it makes him feel sick, her giving up, like Sophia isn't worth it, like Sophia doesn't need her. He thinks of them at the campfire, Sophia fit perfectly into the space under her mother's arm. So that's all Sophia gets? Two nights without Ed, that's all she fucking gets? Fucked up.   
  
And for him? He's nothing. Nobody in the group even wants him there - not Shane, not Rick, not Lori. They'd have left him at the camp or dumped him on relatives if there was any option that'd still let them think about themselves as the good guys. He's used up, battered goods - there's nothing waiting for him anywhere, no one crying in a chair all night because he hasn't come home, no one looking up every time someone steps down the drive, hopeful at just the very possibility it would be him. No one needs Daryl. No one.   
  
And Sophia needs Carol. And Carol's giving up.   
  
He'd shove Carol if he could, but he can't, so he knocks over the saddle. His side pulls, his back, and he grunts, doubles over, pushes against it.   
  
"Are you all right," he hears, and her feet scuff across the floor and it sounds like yesterday, him braced against the stall door and Shane practically winding up, stepping over the floor towards him, his fucking belt - 

"Leave me be!" he snarls, shoves his hands out. If she touches him, he'll scream, he doesn't know what he'll do, and so he doesn't let it happen. He gets out of there, leaving the saddle on the floor, as fast as he can. He hears her footsteps following, and he snarls again. "Stupid bitch," he spits, and he feels her stop behind him and he gets away.   
  
He guesses she does know the difference between getting cussed at and cussed in front of.

* * *

He's hiding out in his tent again - he doesn't know where else to go, if he can't go find Sophia, and he's hurting. He thinks about taking the other half of his dad's painkiller, but he doesn't know what that'll do, if it'd be too much, and he wants to be sharp if anything happens. So he just lays down, tries to relax. He's never rested so much in his damn life.   
  
And he hears Shane outside again and he fucking freezes. He can't ever catch a fucking break.   
  
"You okay?" he hears Shane say - softly, almost gently. He wonders who Shane's talking to like that. Andrea? Lori?   
  
"Yeah," Carl says, and the knot in Daryl's stomach turns to ice. Shit.   
  
"I know you think Sophia's dead, and that was should stop looking for her," Carl proclaims. He can practically see him, that stupid sheriff hat on his head, deputy Carl. Fuck. "But that's bullshit."  
  
"Hey man, watch your mouth," Shane says, and Daryl's mouth is dry. If he makes a move towards Carl, he'll have to go out there. He starts inching for the zipper, carefully, slowly. Shane's so fucking fast.   
  
"We're gonna stay here until we find her," Carl says forcefully.   
  
"You think that's what we should do?"  
  
"It's what I know we should do." Carl is so fucking stupid, but he's also brave, fucking tough sumbitch. Daryl's got the zipper in his hand and he takes a deep breath, readies himself. He's got to move quick, catch Shane by surprise, or -

"Then we stay," Shane says quietly, and Daryl sits back on his heels. Oh. "That means we gotta do whatever we got to do to make that happen. Hmm?"  
  
"Like help out with chores?"  
  
Carl's brave but he's so fucking stupid.

"Carl! Come here for a minute?"   
  
Thank God. Lori's fucking paying attention to her own kid for once.

"Hey Carl?" he hears Shane call as Carl's footsteps, heavy in their little hiking boots, tromp through the grass. "Don't let me hear you talk like that again."  
  
And Daryl hears, even if Carl doesn't, the threat under Shane's words. 

* * *

As soon as Shane's away, Daryl's out of the tent - he sneaks around the back of the RV, doubles around the other side of the house, so Shane won't know Daryl was listening again. He goes out on Hershel's land a way he's never been - the opposite direction from the barn, looming in the distance. Finds the pond. The floating dock. He feels sweaty and sticky and wishes he could go for a swim, but his side twinges when he sits, reminding him, so he just stays at the edge. Until he sees the roses. 

"Kin you - come with me?" Daryl asks Carol. She's in camp, scrubbing at the pan she made the eggs in for breakfast. "Wanna show you somethin'." He expects her to hesitate, to laugh in his face, to look scared of him. But she just gets up and follows him.   
  
He shows her the flowers - he didn't pick them this time. Maybe they're better luck if he leaves them in the ground. He flicks a look at her face, the back at the flowers. "I'll find her," he says simply. He doesn't know how to explain signs or messages, the way that the woods or nature talk to him sometimes, the things he can read from it. He can't explain any of that, so he just says this. It holds all the other thoughts inside it, anyway.   
  
Carol's looking at them and she looks like she might cry again - like she did in the stable, he thinks, guilt pinching his stomach. He looks at her face, at the flowers, back at her face. Back at the flowers. 

" 'M sorry," he mutters. " 'Bout what happened this morning." He shouldn't have done that - shoved the saddle and stuff. Probably scared her. He's only fourteen but he's tall enough, strong enough. He could hurt her if he wanted to. He doesn't want to. 

"You wanted to look for her," Carol says. She's still looking at the flowers, but then her eyes are straight on his, and he can't look away. "Why? This whole time, I've wanted to ask you."  
  
Why? There's only one answer.   
  
"Cause I think she's still out there," he says. Carol is touching one of the roses with soft, steady fingers. "'Sides - what else I got to do?"  
  
He's not sure it's the right thing, but Carol smoothes down one petal. Looks at him. "We'll find her," she says. "We will. I see it."   
  
And Daryl's glad he brought her.


	10. Pretty Much Dead Already (Part 2)

When he and Carol get back up to the house, everyone's hanging out like a fucking slumber party of something and no one's been looking for Sophia.   
  
He should have gone out. Instead of finding the flowers, showing Carol, he should have gone back to the barn and saddled up and picked up the trail. All this delaying is stupid and what'll Sophia think when they find her and she finds out they basically had a goddamn tea party when Rick was MIA?  
  
"Ain't no one takin' this seriously? We got us a damn trail!" Guilt flashes through the group, on Glenn's face in particular - he's an open book. They should have known about the walkers days ago, the way Glenn practically had "I HAVE A SECRET" stamped on his forehead. Daryl just thought he'd been fucking the farmer's daughter and was scared to get caught.   
  
Then he hears footsteps and he turns, ready to give Rick a piece of his mind for vanishing when he was supposed to be doing something important, but it's not Rick. It's Shane, and he's striding towards them with a bag on guns on his shoulder.   
  
"What's all this?" Daryl asks. He looks to the others, but they have no clue either. The barn, he's not that stupid, he knows it has something to do with the barn - 

Shane's looking at him. "You with me, kid?"   
  
Hell no Daryl ain't with him. He isn't with any of these people, not a one. He's with Sophia.   
  
But then he sees the look in Shane's eyes as he pulls the gun out of the bag, as he holds the butt in his hand like a battering ram. _You're either with me or against me_ , the eyes say.   
  
So Daryl's with him, he guess. "Yeah," he mumbles, and Shane shoves a gun into his chest, pinging the side of his arrow wound. He hisses.   
  
"Time to grow up!" Shane yells, and he's distributing guns to everyone. Daryl checks his. It's loaded. He hasn't held a gun in a while, probably not since the attack on the camp, and it's heavy in his hands after the bow. But if Shane's going to act fucking crazy waving guns around, Daryl'd rather have one than not. 

"It was one thing sittin' around here picking daisies when we thought this place was supposed to be safe, but now we know it ain't," Shane's blaring, and Daryl looks at the others and doesn't understand how they don't all see that the thing that's making this place dangerous is Shane.   
  
Maybe Carol sees. But she's behind him and he doesn't want to turn around, draw attention to her, draw attention to himself. He cradles the rifle in his hands. 

"Can you shoot?"  
  
"Can you stop?" Glenn's horsegirl snaps. "You do this, you hand out these guns, my dad will make you leave tonight."  
  
"We have to stay, Shane," Carl breaks in, and fuck, he shouldn't be here, messed up in all this. Shane's all hopped up and there's live rounds and the kid's only just up again after getting shot the first time - 

"What is this?" Lori rushing in and Daryl thinks that's a bad thing. Lori makes Shane crazy. And Shane doesn't need to get any crazier.   
  
"We ain't going anywhere, okay? Now look, Hershel? He's just gotta understand, okay? He - well, he's gonna have to." And then Shane is striding towards Carl, kneeling down in front of him. "Now - we need to find Sophia, am I right?"  
  
Daryl wants to bash the gun into Shane's stupid bald head. He doesn't give a shit about Sophia. Shane doesn't care about anything but Shane.   
  
Carl is staring at him, something uncertain around his eyes. He looks around, and Daryl thinks he must be looking for Lori but instead he's looking straight at Daryl.   
  
Be careful, Daryl thinks. Don't be stupid, don't be brave. Be careful.   
  
"Now, I want you to take this." He's handing Carl a gun and Daryl relaxes slightly. At least now Carl can defend himself against Shane. But Carl's not taking it. He's just sharing at Shane as Shane shoves it, more aggressively, in his direction. "You take it, Carl, and you keep your mother safe. You do whatever it takes. You know how. Go on, take the gun and do it."  
  
Take the gun, Daryl thinks, but before Carl can Lori is pushing him back, is getting in Shane's face.  
  
"Rick said no guns. This is not your call. This is not your decision to make."  
  
And he wonders how it is that of all these people, he's maybe the person who knows Shane best, because he knows what Shane will do when Lori says that. 

But they're interrupted by T-Dog. "Oh, shit."  
  
Hershel and Rick have come back.

* * *

Shane is so fucking fast, he's over to Rick and Hershel and the walkers before the others are halfway. He's shouting, he's pointing, and Hershel is shouting back.   
  
"You see what you're holding onto?"  
  
"I see who I'm holding onto!"   
  
Maybe Carl isn't the only brave stupid one around here. 

He sees Lori rushing over, Carl being pulled along by the hand. His other hand is pressing against his chest and he wonders why Lori doesn't notice, doesn't take him inside. Her being here won't fix anything and he wonders why she thinks it would.   
  
"Hey Hershel, man, let me ask you somethin'. Could a living, breathing person, could they walk away from this?"   
  
And Shane opens fire.   
  
He's good with a gun, Daryl can admit it. He holds his own gun up, muzzle pointed halfway between the walkers and Shane. Every gunshot makes him tighter and tighter. 

"That's three rounds in the chest," Shane yells. "Could someone whos' alive, could they just take that? Why is it still coming?" And Shane fires off two more.   
  
"That's its heart, its lungs. Why is it still coming?"  
  
Another three shots. Shane's not doing this because he has to. Daryl can see that. He wants to. He's enjoying it.   
  
"Shane, enough!" Rick yells.   
  
"Yeah, you're right, man. That is enough."   
  
And he drops the walker with one right between the eyes.   
  
The walker falls and it pulls Hershel down with it. But Hershel doesn't get back up. He's staring, staring like Shane just shot his daughters in front of him. He's looking at Shane like he's a monster.   
  
And Shane is. But not for the reasons Hershel thinks.   
  
"Enough! Enough risking our lives for a little girl whose GONE!" Daryl grips the gun tighter. "Enough living next to a barn full of things that are trying to kill us! Enough! Rick - it ain't like it was before." The walker Rick is corralling snaps and snarls as if to prove it as Rick stares at Shane like he's never seen him before. "You all want to live, you want to survive, you got to fight for it! Fight! I'm talking about right here, right now."  
  
Daryl knows how to fight. He's been doing it his whole life. 

When Shane lets the walkers out, Daryl's almost glad. He imagines each one with Shane's face, every one he hits, just Shane's head exploding over and over and over again - when they stop coming, he almost wishes there were more. 

And then there is one more coming. He can hear it, the low snarl, the groan, the shuffling as it makes it's way from the darkness of the barn out into the - 

At first he doesn't understand what he's seeing. Sophia, he thinks. Sophia's here. She's alive. She found her own way back at the worst time - briefly he wonders if the gunshots helped draw her, if the sound told her which direction to go -  
  
But after a second, it catches up with him. Sophia's here. But she's not alive.   
  
"Oh God," he hears Lori saying. "Oh God, no. No."  
  
"Sophia?" Carol's voice is terrible, the worst thing he's ever heard. Then he hears her feet pounding the dirt, feels her come flying behind him. "Sophia! Sophia!"

He drops his gun and catches her and Carol just falls. He lowers to the ground the best he can, one arm around her elbow, keeping her close to him. She can't go to her. She can't run up and smooth her hair and kiss her forehead and tell her it'll be all right. If Carol does any of those things, she's dead too, as dead as Sophia, and so he holds her, even when his side is screaming with pain. She doesn't fight him, not really - she claws at the dirt like that will do something, like Sophia is under there and if she digs deep enough -

"Sophia," she moans, and Daryl feels her whole body convulse in his arms. "Sophia."  
  
Other than that, other than the sounds of Sophia's little feet - they're so tiny, how could he have ever followed a trail left by such light steps? - dragging themselves forward towards them, there's nothing. He thinks maybe he hears Carl, behind him, going "No, no," but Carol is all he can hear and Sophia is all he can see. So he tries to lift Carol up so she's not totally lying in the dirt, tries to give her something. He doesn't know how to show her anything like this, so he does what he can and he holds her.   
  
"Sophia," she whispers.   
  
"Don't watch," he hears Lori saying behind him, and that's how he realizes time has still been passing, he hasn't just been stuck in a loop of the most awful moment. Carol shakes in his arms and he holds her tighter. He doesn't let go.  
  
And then it's Rick, Rick stepping forward, Rick raising his gun - he feels Carol lean back into him, her chest heaving, she knows what's coming -   
  
And then the shot comes and it's all over. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, we got there. I really love Sophia and I wish it could have gone differently - maybe I'll do a one shot of an AU where Daryl finds her. (An AU of an AU.)


	11. Nebraska

Sophia's on the ground and so is Carol, prone, face in the dirt, sobbing, and he's not going to let her stay there. He's not. 

"Don't look," he says, echoing Lori from earlier. It's good advice. "Don't look!" he says, and he starts to drag her away but she turns around and she shoves him. It's not hard, it doesn't hurt or anything, but he lets go, right away. Steps back. Watches her, warily - if she goes for Sophia again, he'll stop her, he doesn't care if she hurts him - but he eyes just fill with tears and she leaves, her sobs echoing in the empty air behind her. 

He doesn't stay there. Doesn't want to be on body patrol, not this time. Doesn't want to have to sift and drag anybody anywhere, decide who to burn, who to bury. He won't do it. He starts back to the house by Shane is fighting with Hershel - Hershel, who looks a million years old, his daughters under his arms, almost carrying him. 

"We've been out, we've been combing these woods looking for her, and she was in there all along? You knew!" 

Shane says it like it was him combing the woods, him beating the bushes. It wasn't him. It was Daryl.   
  
He can't hear Hershel's response but he does hear Shane yell, "You expect me to believe that? I look like an idiot?"  
  
And then Hershel yells back, "I don't care what you believe!" He's larger in that second, fierce, stepping forward like he's going to do something, and Daryl wonders if that's what Hershel's father was like.   
  
Rick's trying to settle it but it can't be settled, and Shane's going for Hershel and Hershel just stands there, defiant, waiting for Shane - 

"Don't you touch him!" 

And Glenn's horse girl has up and slapped Shane across the face and she doesn't back down. She's glaring at him and for a second Daryl thinks Shane's gonna hit her, but he doesn't. Maybe he can tell that'd make everyone go too far. 

Hershel's family goes in the house and Rick and Shane stand outside the porch and Daryl makes his way back into the camp.   
  
"What're you doing?" he can hear Rick say as he heads for the tents.   
  
"Daryl almost died looking for her, Rick -"  
  
And Daryl wants to throw up. 

* * *

Carol's in the RV. It's still all spruced out around here. There's markers, Daryl sees, on a jar on the table. Like it's set up for a kid to come and color.   
  
He just stands there. Doesn't know what to say. How to go.   
  
He told her they'd find her.  
  
He leans up against something and just waits. It's not like he's great at words even in the best of times - they slip around on him, mess him up, he can never get them to say what he means. So he won't say anything. He'll just sit. He'll wait.   
  
Carol looks at him then. A long look. He sees her throat contract, watches her swallow. Watches her eyes fill up.   
  
She looks back out the window. He waits.  
  
He told Carol he'd bring her home.

He doesn't know how much later it is when Lori comes up the steps. She smiles, but it doesn't look right, and then she doesn't force it. 

"They're ready," she says, and there's only one thing they could be ready for.   
  
Daryl hops off the counter he's been perching on, hovers. He'll follow Carol. But Carol shakes her head.   
  
"Come on," Lori says, gently.   
  
"Why?" Carol says.   
  
"Cause that's your little girl," Daryl says before he can stop himself. He wonders if Carol is in shock, if she doesn't know what they're talking about. She wouldn't leave Sophia. She'd never let Sophia down like that. So she just must not understand what Lori's telling her. 

So when Carol looks at him and says, "That's not my little girl," his blood runs cold. Is she saying it's not Sophia? It is, he knows it is - her shirt, her hair, even her eyes - the same wideness, even if they were dull and dim. Is he going to have to take Carol out there and show her, make her look at the body, make her understand. "That's some other - thing."  
  
She knows, Daryl realizes. It's not that she doesn't know, that she thinks it's some other kid. She knows it's Sophia but for her, it's a funeral for a walker.   
  
"My Sophia was alone in the woods," she says. Tears are spilling out of her eyes but she just stares at the window, maybe at the treeline the peeks at them from behind the barn. "All this time I thought -"  
  
She thought he'd find her. And he hadn't.   
  
"She didn't cry herself to sleep. She didn't go hungry. She didn't try to find her way back. Sophia died a long time ago."  
  
Because of you, he hears in his head. Because you didn't get to her fast enough. Lori backs away. And Daryl can't look at Carol anymore. Because even though he failed, even though he didn't get her back, her kid is dead. Her kid is dead and that kid's body needs to be buried and that kid needs her mama to say goodbye, to smooth her hair one last time, to tell her it'll be okay.  
  
And Carol isn't going to do any of those things. So he leaves.   
  
And he goes to the funeral.   
  
They've already put Hershel's people in the ground. He sees Andrea tugging at Sophia - it's got to be Sophia, even though she's covered up with a blanket. It's too small not to be. The hole is smaller too, but just as deep.   
  
"Give 'er to me," he snarls at Andrea, but his hands are gentle as he takes her. She's light - he could carry her like this all day, if he needed to. If he'd found her out there with a broken ankle or something, he could have carried her back. He lays her down in the hole gently. Tucks the blanket around her so the dirt won't fall on her.   
  
He sees one finger poking out from under the blanket. Remembers her finger pointing at the sky, tracing the straws. Her pulse under his fingers as he guided her, warm, alive. He tucks the fingers back under the blanket, careful. It's cold.   
  
It's not like Hershel's funeral for Otis, the pile of stones, the words. There's nothing to say, from any of them. They just stand there. Daryl stands off to one side. He wishes all these people would go so he could sit here, figure out what he needed to say. But they don't leave. They just stand there, numb. Staring at a tiny pile of dirt.

* * *

When they break up, he goes to the pond. Where he'd seen the Cherokee roses. He doesn't know what exactly he's planning - to pick them? To try and replant them, maybe? Maybe he just wants to bring her one, tell her about them like he thought he'd do on some car trip or another when they found her. But he gets there and the flowers are ruined. They're all torn up - just leaves and stems and crushed petals.  
  
He gathers the petals he can, shoves them in his pocket. He's on his way to bring them - taking the long way round so no one will see him, so no one will try to join - which takes him by the well.   
  
Which is where he sees Carol with Shane. He stays in the tree cover, keeps quiet. Shane's got his hands on Carol - he sees her body twist a little, one way, then another, before he plants a hand on her back, steers her towards the pump. 

Daryl doesn't have his bow. His knife is strapped to his belt but he doesn't know if he can take Shane with a knife. He watches Shane starts running his hands over Carol's arms, cleaning her up. 

"I want you to know that I'm real sorry for your girl."  
  
"Thank you." The pleasantry sounds numb, blank. Autopilot.   
  
"When I opened that barn I had no idea - if I did - everybody thinks that I'm a -" Shane doesn't finish the thought. Daryl could.   
  
"I was just trying to keep everybody safe."   
  
Daryl wonders if Shane really believes this. He watches as Shane runs the water down her arms again. Stops at her hands. Holds her hand. It feels too close, too personal. Carol's hand just lays there, limp. Motionless.   
  
She doesn't make a move the rest of the time Shane washes her arms. Finally, Shane leaves. And Carol still doesn't move.

* * *

He's found himself a private spot - out over some fallow field, near the remains of an old homestead or something. The chimney is still there and he sits there and sets himself to something - trying to make his own bolts, after all the ones he's lost to walkers. It's quiet, there. Peaceful. No one yammering at him or touching him. He's alone, finally, peacefully, blessedly alone. He's there when Lori finds him.  
  
"Listen, Beth's in some kind of catatonic shock -" Who the fuck is Beth? Otis' lady? "We need Hershel."  
  
"Yeah? So what?" he mumbles, not looking up from his work.   
  
"So we need you to run into town real quick and bring him and Rick back."  
  
He looks at her, incredulous. Him? After all this, can't she see he's the last one should be entrusted to something like that? The people he goes looking for don't get found. First his dad, then Sophia. She should understand that now.

He just looks down, focuses on his work.  
  
"He's just at the bar in town. It's not far. Straight shot, Maggie says."  
  
"Then send her," her grumbles.   
  
"She can't leave her sister."  
  
Oh. The blonde one. That's Beth. "Why's he at a bar, anyway? Can't drink on his own fuckin' plantation?"  
  
"He doesn't keep liquor in the house."  
  
Oh. Former boozer. Yeah, he guesses Hershel'd be the type. Well, that's another good reason no to go - no good finding Hershel after he's fallen of the wagon and getting the shit kicked out of him.   
  
I wouldn't send you if it wasn't important. Glenn went with him, and I don't know where the hell T-Dog is -"  
  
Daryl knows. He's burning the bodies of the ones they didn't bury. Other peoples Sophia's.  
  
"And Shane -"  
  
"Your bitch went window shoppin'," he snaps. "You want him? Fetch him yourself. I got better things to do."  
  
"What's the matter with you? How could you be so selfish?"  
  
That sets him off. "Selfish? Listen to me, Olive Oyl. I was out there looking for that little girl every single day. I took a bullet and an arrow in the process." His own fault. "Don't you tell me about getting my hands dirty! You want those two idiots, have a nice ride. I'm done looking for people."  
  
 _It's for your own good_ , he wants to say to her as she storms away. _People I look for don't come back._


	12. Triggerfinger

He moves his tent out near the old chimney. Builds a fire. It's quiet. Just the sound of the fire crackling. He doesn't want to see anybody. He just wants to be alone.   
  
Which of course is why in the six hours he's been there he's already had two visitors.   
  
Carol must have seen the light from his fire. She comes up, moving fast. He squints at her in the dark, then turns back to the flames. He doesn't have to look at her if he doesn't want to. He doesn't owe her anything.   
  
Or he owes her everything, the sick feeling in his stomach whispers, but he shoves it aside.   
  
"We can't find Lori," she says quickly. "And the others aren't back yet either."  
  
Even now she's not up here about Sophia. He spits in the fire. Can't tell if he's disappointed she's not tearing the shit out of him for fucking up or if he's glad he doesn't have to face it yet.   
  
"Yeah. Dumb bitch must've gone off looking for 'em."  
  
"What?"  
  
He shrugs, winces as it tugs at his stitches. " Yeah. She asked me to go." He eyes her in the dark. He wishes she'd just scream at him already. Hit him. He fucked up. He lost Sophia. And she doesn't even care. Sophia deserved better than that, for her mother, on the night of her goddamn funeral, to be out in the dark trying to solve some different problem. "Told her I was done bein' an errand boy."  
  
"And you didn't say anything?" There's the disappointment in him, but it's for the wrong fucking reason. What does she care if he's not out beating the bushes for fucking Lori Grimes? She's a grown ass woman. She can find her own damn way home. Sophia couldn't. Sophia needed him, and he'd let her down.  
  
Carol walks away without saying anything, and he feels himself slump. Nothing.   
  
But then she's back before he even notices and he wonders if this is it, if it's now, wonders if it'll hurt when she hits him. She looks so small. 

But she doesn't hit him. "Don't do this." He thinks the words should sound like an order, a command, but instead it's just a plea. "Please? I've already lost my girl."  
  
And that gets him up, using the stick he's been using to poke the fire to leverage himself to his feet. He throws the stick in the fire, watches the sparks fly.   
  
"That wasn't my problem neither," he spits, and he storms off into the darkness. 

* * *

He doesn't go far - it's dark and he's tired and his head is killing him. He wants to take the other half of his dad's painkiller, clear his head, but he remembers his dad popping them like candy and he tries to hold back. He walks around the field a few times, tries to settle his breath.   
  
But when he comes back Carol's there, looking at the squirrels he'd gotten earlier. He figured he got enough game, he wouldn't even have to go back to their main camp for meals. _Squirrel spaghetti!_ he hears the wind whisper in his ear, and the rustle of the grass around his feet almost sounds like a giggle. 

When he stomps over the grass doesn't sound like anything, just grass. Carol jumps - she hadn't heard him coming.   
  
"What're you doin'?" he grunts, skirting around her. He'd grabbed the tin cans from the RV and he's going to make himself a tripline. Carol follows after him.   
  
"Keeping an eye on you."  
  
He bristles. "Ain't some fucking kid," he mutters. "Don't need no one keepin' an eye on me." Unless she meant she was watching him to make sure he didn't fuck up again. Make sure he didn't kill anyone else's kid. Only kid left was Carl and he'd already been shot. 

"I'm not going to let you pull away," he hears her say, and it sets him off. Him? He's the one pulling away? She's the one wouldn't even go to her own daughter's funeral! "You've earned your place."  
  
His place? His place is in the fucking stable with Shane, in the cabin with his dad, his place is getting the shit kicked out of him because it's the only way someone that stupid can learn. He's a fuck up, he always has been, and if he'd been less of one Sophia'd be alive and playing Uno with Carl back at the house.   
  
"You spent half your time mindin' your daughter's business, 'steada stickin' your nose in everybody else's, she'd still be alive!" He's angry, he's so angry, and she's just standing there, watching him. As he watches, she pulls herself tighter. Smaller.   
  
"Go ahead." Her voice is smaller too and her eyes are tracking him as he shifts back and forth.  
  
"Go ahead and what?" he shoots back. Go ahead? She's the one should be going ahead, she's the one who should be - maybe as a lady she wouldn't be able to hit that hard but she could use a belt or something. Hell, there were bags of guns and knives at camp, she could have grabbed anything. She could have grabbed anyone - told Shane after they got so buddy-buddy this afternoon. Had him take care of it. She really cared about her kid, she would have.   
  
But when he looks at her, standing too still in the dark, he realizes that maybe she's asking for the same thing he's asking her, and that makes him feel sick, so sick he can't hardly breathe.   
  
"Just go! I don't want you here!" She doesn't move. "You're a real piece of work, lady." She's like stone. The only thing moving is her eyes - following his hands as he gestures, when he points. It just makes him angrier. What'd she done wrong? Nothing. He was the one who needed to be punished. So why wouldn't she do it already?   
  
"What, are you gonna make this about my daddy or some crap like that? Pfft! Man, you dunno jack." She still won't do anything and he feels it welling up inside him, that feeling like he just wishes someone would hurt as much as he did for once, for goddamn once, and if they won't then he'll make them, he'll -

"You're afraid. You're afraid 'cause you're all alone. You got no husband, no daughter. You don't know what to do with yourself. You ain't my problem! Sophia wasn't mine! All you had to do was keep an eye on her!"  
  
On the last he steps forward, furious, so furious it's like his blood is boiling, his brain - 

But she doesn't hit him. Instead, she flinches. A sound - an aborted whimper, teeth clenched over a thought, comes out and she turns her head but not away. It's like she knows what's coming and she's bracing for it instead of trying to dodge it. 

But that's not what's coming. He stops dead in his tracks. Stares at her. Her eyes are so blue, and they are staring at him. She blinks, opens her mouth as if to speak. Closes it.   
  
He feels sick and scared and sad, so sad, and he wishes he could just feel angry again because at least it feels better than this. He sees Carol as she tries to speak again, swallows. Her eyes are welling up and he can't look at her anymore, he can't. So instead he goes over to the chimney and punches it, hard. And again.   
  
When he goes into the third punch, he sees that Carol is still just standing there. Her shoulders are shaking. She's crying. 

And he, in the shadow of the chimney, his side splitting, his head aching, his first throbbing from punching rock - he cries too.


	13. 18 Miles Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Parts of this chapter are from the episode Triggerfinger. Then, a look at what Daryl and Carol and Hershel get up to during 18 Miles Out.

The next day he comes down to the house again and Shane's loading up the car. He shoulders his bow awkwardly. He doesn't know if Shane knows he didn't go to town for Lori, but if he does, it won't mean anything good. His hands are bruised and one of his fingers won't bend right after slamming on those rocks yesterday, and he's not sure why he's here.   
  
Except that Carol is in the corner of the yard and he doesn't want her to be disappointed in him again.   
  
He doesn't know when she left last night. He listened to her crying, his face in his own hands, crying too, and he almost goes out to see if he's all right, but he stays put instead. Can't let her see him like this, some fucking pansy fag crying for some kid he barely even knew. His dad'd tar him, he wandered around snotting everywhere like some fucking baby.   
  
He doesn't remember stopping crying, either. He just remembers waking up, the light gray and uncertain as the sun started to rise, him leaning awkwardly against the chimney, and Carol's not there anymore.   
  
He'll go, he decides that morning. If Rick and Hershel and them ain't back, he'll go.   
  
He just somehow hadn't thought through that Shane might go too.   
  
"What are you doing?"   
  
It's Carol. He adjusts the bow on his back, shrugs. "Go fin' Rick and Hershel and Glenn. They ain't come back, right?"  
  
"That's not your job."  
  
He stares at her. "Yesterday you said -" he says, and she interrupts him.   
  
"You don't need to go back out there. That wasn't what I was talking about."  
  
Does she think he'll fuck up again? Think he's bad luck? Why -

"Oh, Daryl, your hands," she says, and he looks down. That finger that won't bend right is a little crooked, and his knuckles are covered with scabs.   
  
" 'M fine," he says.   
  
"Come here."  
  
She gets closer to him and he stiffens but doesn't move. But all she does is, very slowly, take his left hand - the one with the janked up finger - and examine it, carefully. Her hands are warm and smooth compared to his own rough mitts. He doesn't pull back.   
  
"Come on - let's get you cleaned up."  
  
"I kin go," he says instead. He hears Shane and them talking about where to go first. "I kin -"  
  
"Of course you can," Carol says. "But you don't have to."  
  
But it's a moot point because there, winding up the drive, is Hershel and Rick and Glenn.   
  
And Randall.

* * *

Carol gets him over to the bathroom in the big house and runs cold water over his hands. The scabs are nothing - he's had worse, from fistfights. The finger is different - he hisses as she tries to straighten it, has to fight not to grab his hand back.   
  
"'M sorry," he says suddenly. Carol looks at him, and he steels himself. He doesn't know what he's really apologizing for - for what he said, for not finding Sophia, for making her think he was gonna - 

But she just gives him one small smile. "Me too, Daryl. Me too."  
  
Then it's off to the war meeting about what to do with fucking Randall.   
  
Shane's still in a mood, snarking at everyone, and Daryl hates it that he agrees with Shane, a little bit. Daryl knows what they should do. The guy is a liability. Either they got to find out what he knows or they should just kill him outright. Who knows who his people are. What they'd bring down with them.   
  
Then Hershel and Shane are facing off and Daryl tenses. He's sitting next to Carol - they'd walked in together from the bathroom, and she notices and puts a hand, feather light, on the back of his chair. She doesn't touch him, and he's not a baby, but it makes something in him ease a little as Hershel and Shane fight.   
  
Then Rick is placating Hershel and everyone dissipates and Daryl tries to disappear - he's out of the house before anyone else, but Carol is right behind him.   
  
"I think that finger might be broken," she says. She's probably right. It's happened before. He looks at her hands. Her right pinky, he notices, is ever so slightly offset from the others. He looks away. "We should set it."  
  
Which is how they end up upstairs, digging through Hershel's medicine cabinet, when they hear Maggie's voice ring out, low, accusatory.   
  
"You were drinking!"   
  
Part of what sucks about having so many people around, Daryl thinks, is that your constantly overhearing shit you wish you hadn't. The bathroom door isn't all the way open, but Daryl, fast as anything, closes it. He's probably safe in the house, but he doesn't want Shane to find him snooping again. Even though Daryl doesn't even want to snoop.   
  
Carol looks at him as they hear Maggie's footsteps, angry and loud in cowboy boots as she slams her way down the stairs.   
  
His slumps back a little against the door and hisses as his back brushes against it.   
  
"Stitches?" Carol asks, and he nods. Doesn't look at her. Looks at his fingers instead. "I don't see anything in here. We'll have to ask Hershel."  
  
"M'fine," he says immediately. And he is. He can rip up some of his shirts or something, bind it that way. "He's workin' on his girl."   
  
"Hey," he hears, and he looks at her. She gives him a smile. "Let me do this. Okay?"  
  
So he does.   
  
When they find Hershel, he's cleaning himself up. He's lost the bloody undershirt and switched into a clean new one, and his suspenders are hanging from his waist as he finishes buttoning up. Daryl scoffs at the idea of wearing that much shit in summer in Georgia. Trash might be grungy, but at least it's comfortable. He almost backs away - he's splinted fingers himself before, ain't no big deal - but Carol is right behind him. Let me do this, he hears her say in his head, so he grits his teeth and waits.   
  
Hershel catches sight of them in the mirror. "Whose hurt now?" he asks simply. 

Daryl feels his ears go hot.   
  
"We're just looking for some medical tape," Carol says. "Daryl had - a little accident."   
  
Hershel's looking at him and he looks away. Fucking stupid old man, doesn't know him, doesn't know anything, they should just go - 

"Let's see." Hershel has turned, has come towards them, is holding out a hand. Daryl takes a step back, automatically, but Carol is right behind him, so he springs forward again.   
  
"Ain't nothin'," Daryl says. He's tucked his hand under his armpit, automatically. "Just jammed it. Just need some tape -"  
  
"Let's see," Hershel repeats, and Daryl sticks out his hand and scowls.   
  
"Hm. Quite an accident," Hershel muses, and Daryl feels his blush spread from his ears down his face. Stupid, his own damn fault his finger's fucked up, and Hershel doesn't look like he holds with fighting. Not that Daryl was fighting, but his hands look like he was.   
  
"Is it broken?" Carol asks.

"I don't think so. Maybe just sprained. We'll splint it, watch for a week, see what that does." He gets the tape from a drawer near his bed. The fuck point is that? Why doesn't he keep it in the medicine cabinet like a normal person? Hershel wraps him up.   
  
"I have to go check on Randall again now - but you come back and see me later. Want to have a look at those stitches, make sure they're healing all right."  
  
Daryl doesn't say anything. Nods.   
  
"Thanks, Hershel," Carol says, and he just grunts and makes his exit. He's faster than Carol this time. Gets up to the field, the chimney.   
  
Disassembles everything. Brings it back to the main camp. Sets it up again, but closer to the RV this time. That's where Carol's sleeping. And maybe there won't be so many conversations to overhear by accident, if he's near the biggest damn thing in their camp.

* * *

He's able to lay low for a couple days - maybe Carol can tell he's getting close to the end of his rope, because she doesn't push him. Hershel's not around either, going between Randall's room and Beth's, and when he's not with either of them he seems in his own world - sitting on the porch staring at nothing, or in the stables with the horses. It makes him easy to avoid. 

Shane's harder to avoid, but Daryl manages. Shane's edgy and angry around camp. He spends a lot of time looking at the shed where Randall is and muttering with Andrea. But Daryl keeps out of his way. 

He rests a lot. Not in the tent, or at least not in the tent with the door closed. He sits near the fire, working on his homemade bolts, he sits on the shady side of the house, out of sight. Carl joins him once, while Daryl sands the rough wood he whittled down, trying to make it more aerodynamic. The younger boy seems deflated, that hat wobbly on his small head. He just sits down next to Daryl and watching him for a minute.   
  
"What are you making?"  
  
"Arrows," Daryl grunts.   
  
"Oh."   
  
He watches a little longer. Daryl filched the sandpaper from the stables, from a table of construction shit, fence posts and wire snips and hammers. He looks sidelong at Carl, then rips the paper in half. Hands him some.   
  
"Here."  
  
Carl looks at the sand paper seriously, like it's a math test instead of a ratty bit of paper. "What do I do?"  
  
"Just - I dunno. Rub at it." Daryl starts sanding again. If Carl can't figure it out, that's on him. But Carl joins in after a minute - his movements jerky at first, but getting smoother.   
  
They stay there the rest of the afternoon, not talking, just working next to each other. 

It's the day before they're going to set Randall free that Hershel catches up with him. He'd gone to the stables to see the horses - Maggie'd given him an apple and he was slicing it into four pieces with his buck knife so he could give some to each horse, Bluebell and Petey and Post and Nellie. He thinks the girls must have done the naming. He's feeding Nellie, whose lipping at his palms, snorting hot air at him, when he hears the door creak behind him.   
  
He's halfway to the other doors before he realizes it's Hershel.   
  
"I apologize," Hershel says. He's watching him, very level. "I didn't mean to startle you."  
  
"Didn't," Daryl grunts. He dropped the apple on the ground and Hershel leans over, picks it up. "Maggie gave it t'me," he says quickly, in case Hershel thinks he stole it.  
  
"I imagine she gave it to you for you."  
  
He shrugs. He wasn't hungry. He bites at the side of his thumb. It's the hand with the tape, and Hershel's eyes go straight for it. He turns to Nellie, gives her the last bite of apple. "Let's have a look at that finger."  
  
He eyes Hershel warily, then inches forward. Shoves his hand out. Doesn't do anything as Hershel manipulates his fingers, spreads them apart. He's gentle but it still twinges some. But Daryl doesn't let him know that. "Just sprained," Hershel finally pronounces, and Daryl gets his hand back. "Keep the tape on another few days and you'll be fine."  
  
"Whatever."  
  
"Come on, then."  
  
Daryl stares at him. "Come on what?"  
  
"You want me to look at your stitches in the middle of a stable?"   
  
His stomach goes hard. "They're fine," he mumbles. His hand hovers over his side.   
  
"I'll see that when I look at them."   
  
It's been six days since Shane whupped him in the stables. He hadn't gone that hard - maybe because Daryl was hurt already, or maybe because Shane was a fucking weak ass bitch.   
  
"Said you'd be sorry, you spy on me again," Shane'd said. His belt was narrower than Will's, but not by much. He'd held the buckle in his fist and wrapped it around - fucking pussy, wouldn't even hit him with the buckle. "I asked you nicely once. This the only thing you understand?" He'd snapped the belt at him and Daryl'd just spit. It wasn't the only thing, but he understood it pretty fucking well.   
  
He probably shouldn't have spit. If he hadn't, maybe Shane wouldn't have switched to the buckle. 

It'd been six days. It's not really bothering him anymore - he was moving slow the first couple days with it on top of everything, but he'd been taking it easy. But he didn't know what they looked like. 

He wonders if he can just yank up his shirt here and let Hershel look. Then he won't have to take off his shirt, and it'd probably be faster.   
  
"Son." Hershel is looking at him, steady, one hand patting Nellie on the side, a gentle rhythm. "It's not anything I haven't seen before."  
  
What's that mean? Does he mean it's nothing he hasn't seen because he already saw Daryl's whole top half before? Or he means like as a doctor? But he was a vet before, not a real doctor. Maybe he knows, Daryl thinks, and the thought makes him sick. That maybe he already knew, maybe everyone at camp already knew, maybe Shane had told everyone and no one had said anything because they didn't care. Shane probably hadn't told them it was for spying - maybe he said it was for stealing the horse. Maybe that's why no one has noticed, because they all knew and it wasn't a big deal.   
  
But Carol wouldn't do that.   
  
Would she? He thinks back to camp, with his dad. But that was different. Ed was there then. And she'd tried to help him then too, in her own way. And Will was his dad. It was different. He belonged to Will. Shane wasn't anybody to him. Carol was more to him then Shane was. She wouldn't let Shane hit him in secret. He didn't think.   
  
He's been still too long. Hershel gives Nellie a final pat, then turns full on to Daryl.  
  
"Come on, son. Let's go."  
  
"Fuck you," he spits. He's feeling panicked and he doesn't know why. Because Shane will kill him, he knows, if Daryl gets Shane in trouble. He's not one hundred percent sure Shane would get in trouble, that Hershel would do anything, but it's a high enough chance that it's not worth it. "They're fine, I said."  
  
"Are you a doctor?"  
  
"Are you?" he snipes.   
  
"Closest there is here, I suppose," Hershel says. "Though I'll be the first to say I've got much more experience with horses." He's stroking Nellie's nose again. "She's a rescue, you know." Daryl's not sure where the conversation is going. "Took some doing to get her to take to the saddle again. It's why she's so nervous, I think. She's got habits that she might never break."   
  
Daryl looks at Nellie. She's nipping now at Hershel's fingers and he avoids them, deftly, almost playfully.   
  
"Look from over there," Daryl says, and Hershel looks at him.   
  
"I don't know if that will work."  
  
"Yeah, well, 's best you're gettin'."  
  
Hershel just stares at him, and Daryl hikes up his shirt, quick. Stares at the horse closest to him - Post, he thinks. The black one. He's careful not to pull his shirt too high, keeps it lower in the back than the front. Hershel has inched closer and Daryl fights not to take a step back.  
  
"You're close enough!" Hershel stops and peers at him, and Daryl doesn't move, even though everything in his body is saying run, run, run.   
  
"Doesn't look infected," Hershel says, and Daryl bares his teeth.   
  
"Fuckin' told you, man. Waste of time."   
  
"Let me see the ones on your head." For this, Daryl lets Hershel come closer. His old man fingers brush away his hair and poke a little.   
  
"These stitches should come out soon," he says. "But they're healing well enough."  
  
"How soon?"  
  
"Few more days. Maybe a little longer, the ones on your side."  
  
That's fine. A few more days, his back won't be too noticeable. It's so torn up anyway, Hershel probably couldn't tell the difference, but fresh marks would stick out. A few more days, there won't be much left to see.  
  
Hershel's hands move away from his head, but Hershel doesn't move back. Daryl shifts, an automatic gesture.   
  
"Come with me," Hershel says, and Daryl's about to put up a fight but Hershel's not going far. He's just moved over to one of the stalls, one of the empty ones. But when Hershel opens it up, Daryl sees it isn't empty. There's a bike inside.   
  
It's a dirt bike, a two stroke, but looks in decent enough repair. A Husky, maybe. Daryl'd ridden dirt bikes all his life - Merle'd had one for years that he was constantly fine tuning and modifying, until he got old enough to buy the motorcycle after his first big deal. A twinge in Daryl's chest as he thinks about Merle's Harley, out back in the shed behind his dad's still, gathering cobwebs. When Merle left for basic, he promised he'd go out and clean it every week, keep it running. And now it was probably covered it dust. Merle loved that bike.   
  
"My step-son used to ride motocross, when he was your age. Are you as good with machines as you are with animals?"  
  
Daryl scratches his nose. He doesn't know how good he is with animals - most of what he does with them is kill them and eat them. But he thought he was okay with machines.  
  
"I'unno," he settles for. He's looking at the bike. It's dusty and it looks like no one's touched it for a while.   
  
"He hasn't ridden in years," Hershel says. Then a twist in his voice. "Hadn't."   
  
He was one of them in the barn, then. Daryl looks at Hershel, doesn't know what to say. Looks at the bike.   
  
" 'S'nice," he mumbles. He doesn't know why Hershel is showing him.   
  
"I mean to say, I don't know if it runs worth anything, and I wouldn't know how to fix it. But if you want to mess around with it, you're welcome."  
  
Daryl darts a look at the bike with new light. It's a beautiful bike - all in original piece, not like the shit he and Merle used to put together. He wants to touch it, to mess around with it. But he doesn't dare.   
  
"Not a mechanic or nothin'," Daryl says instead. "Could ruin it."  
  
"No one is using it anyway. It'd - Shawn would like it, I think. If someone could get use of it."  
  
He lets himself touch it with one finger. "Why?"  
  
"Well. Dirt bikes don't spook, for one."  
  
Daryl thinks about breaking his wrist with Merle that time, the bike bucking out from under him, him landing hard at the wrong angle. He doesn't mention that to Hershel.   
  
"Also - it's good for a boy to have a project. Otherwise they get into trouble."  
  
"M'not trouble," Daryl mutters, biting the edge of his thumb.   
  
"I never said you were."

Then Hershel is gone, and Daryl waits ten minutes before he lets himself start going over it.

* * *

The next morning, Randall's gone. 

The next evening, he's back. And things get more complicated.


	14. Judge, Jury, Executioner

This time, Rick agrees. They have to kill Randall.   
  
They get back from the run and shove Randall in the shed again and pow-wow about what to do.   
  
"We need information," Rick is saying, and Shane's scoffing.   
  
"What more information we need? He knows Maggie, he knows the farm, he can -"  
  
"I'm not going to murder a boy for going to the wrong high school! I won't do that!"  
  
"It's eliminating a threat. It's not -"  
  
"Then let's make sure he is a threat!"  
  
"You want that? I'll do it right now. Gladly!"   
  
Dale looks uneasy, and T-Dog has his arms crossed. Lori and Carol are sitting next to each other near the fire, Carl between them. His little ears picking up everything.   
  
In the end, Shane goes into the shed. They send T-Dog with him - Daryl's not sure why. To stop Shane from just up and killing Randall straight off? But he doesn't think T-Dog can stop Shane, or even slow him down.   
  
Shane comes out an hour later, hands covered in blood, T-Dog looking a little sick, and Rick agrees. They have to kill Randall.

Daryl's glad Rick's on board because he hates agreeing with Shane. But it isn't worth it, to risk all their lives for some guy none of them knew existed before a week ago and who they'll forget in another week. He wouldn't risk Carol or Carl or them for Randall. So then there's only one thing to do.   
  
He hasn't seen Randall since they brought him back - face white, leg leaking blood. He doesn't need to. But after the camp talks, after Dale corners Rick and starts giving him some sermon on the sanctity and worth of all living things or some shit, Carl comes up to him.   
  
"They said he's a kid."  
  
Daryl shrugs. "Yeah?"  
  
"Like - how big of a kid? Like a kid like you?"  
  
"Naw, man. Went to school with Maggie, din't he? Prob'ly like her age."  
  
"That's not a kid."  
  
"They just mean he's green, man. Like he's younger'n them. 'S'all."  
  
Carl nods. "Have you - have you seen him?"  
  
"Jus' when he got here."  
  
"I know where he is."  
  
"Yeah," Daryl scoffs, "so does everybody. He's in the shed."  
  
"No, I mean -" Carl looks up at him, balancing that stupid hat. "I know how to get in."

* * *

He's not sure how he ends up in the loft with Carl. Maybe he wants to make sure Carl doesn't do anything stupid, because Carl is stupid. Brave and stupid. Maybe he wants to see the kid too - maybe he wants to know something, maybe he wants to put a name to a face, maybe he's just curious. Maybe nothing, maybe he's bored. But somehow he finds himself up in the loft, staring down at Randall and hearing Shane grumbling outside.   
  
Randall's a mess. His face is swollen and his leg, the leg Hershel had fixed, is a bloody mess below the knee. There's blood running down Randall's nose over his mouth and as they watch he licks his lips to clear them and winces.   
  
" - I don't want anybody to get hurt, okay?" Shane says from outside, and Daryl sees Randall shiver. When he does, he shifts position, and Daryl moves back quick, trying to yank Carl, but he's too late.   
  
"Hey," Randall says, through cracked and bloody lips. "That's a sweet hat."  
  
Carl just stares.   
  
"I'm Randall. What's your name?"  
  
Carl doesn't answer.   
  
"The sheriff guy. That your dad? I like him." Daryl narrows his eyes. Yeah, whatever, Shane beat the shit out of this guy, but he doesn't like the way the guy is trying to butter up Carl anyway. Just because Shane hates him doesn't mean Randall don't still suck, that he isn't dangerous.   
  
"Yeah, he's a good guy, I can tell. Your mom out here too?"  
  
Carl shifts at that and Daryl, whose still got Carl by the elbow, give him a squeeze. Don't. Don't give this guy anything. Won't nothing good come out of it.   
  
"You're lucky, to still have family. I lost mine. Hey, I - I don't know what people been saying about me, but I didn't do nothing, I swear." He sounds whiny all of a sudden, like he is a kid, but he's older than Daryl, definitely, probably in his twenties. He isn't a kid. "Your dad was gonna let me go till his friend started fighting with him."  
  
And then Carl is moving away, out of Daryl's grip. "Carl," he hisses, but Carl doesn't stop. He's going to the ladder at the side of the loft. He's climbing down.   
  
"Fuck. Carl!"  
  
"My camp? We got lots of supplies. You help me, I take you and your folks back to my people."  
  
At that, Daryl's down the ladder in half a jump, grabbing Carl's elbow, yanking him back.

"This your brother? Him too, all of you. We'll take good care of you. We'll keep you safe. Just gotta help me get outta here, okay -"

"The fuck you doin'?" Daryl hisses at Carl.   
  
"Nothing," Carl says, trying to pull his elbow free. "Just -"  
  
"Let's get out of here, C'mon, this ain't -"  
  
"Just help me pick these locks, or find the key, okay? Come on, please? Please?"  
  
"C'mon," Daryl says again, but then the door to the shed is opening and Shane is walking in.  
  
"What the hell are you doing in here? You, you put him up to this?"  
  
Daryl's mouth is dry. Fuck, fuck, fuck -

"What'd you say to him?"  
  
Andrea comes in and he's never been so happy to see the blonde lady in his life. She has her gun drawn, low, and she looks at him and Carl. "You guys okay? What happened?"  
  
"I didn't say nothing," Daryl hears Randall saying in the background, and he hears his own voice echoing in his ears. _Din't see nothin', man, din't -_

Shane's got the gun in Randall's face and Andrea is yelling at him.   
  
"Shane! Shane! Back off!"  
  
And he does. But then he sees Carl and Daryl.   
  
"Get your asses out this door, let's go." He's got Daryl by one arm and Carl by the other, dragging them, and Daryl's putting up a fight. He's not going to let Shane fuck with Carl, not now when Shane's all mad and just shoved a gun in a guys face, not -

"Please don't tell my parents," Carl says, and he sounds scared. Scared of what? Of Shane, or of Rick and Lori? Shane's let go of Carl but he still has Daryl tight. Run, he tries to tell Carl with his eyes. Get the fuck out of here. But Carl just stands there in that stupid goddamn hat - 

"You put him up to this?" He's shaking Daryl now and Daryl grits his teeth as the shaking jars his arrow wound. "You little piece of -   
  
"He didn't - it was my idea, Shane! Daryl was - telling me to go, he wasn't -"  
  
"Carl - you could've gotten hurt in there -"  
  
"I can handle myself," Carl proclaims, and Daryl shoves against Shane, trying to break his grip. Carl can't handle himself, he's just a little kid, and Shane's -

Shane's leaning down, finger in Carl's face, and Daryl can feel the anger practically radiating off of him. "Let me tell you somethin' -"  
  
"Leave 'im alone," Daryl says, and he pushes at Shane harder. "'S my idea, asshole! He din't do nothin'!"  
  
Shane's face hardens. "Carl, go and find you ma. Go on."  
  
"You won't tell them, will you?"

"What'd I just say? Get, man."  
  
Carl starts to walk away, but he turns back. "What about Daryl?"  
  
"Daryl and I gonna have a little talk."  
  
Of course they are.   
  
But they forgot about Andrea. She's standing there, near the shed. She closed the door, has her gun on her hip, and she's looking at Daryl worried.   
  
"Shane - watch it. He's still not one hundred percent -"  
  
"Feelin' well enough to almost get Carl killed -"

"Come on, don't exaggerate. Carl wasn't nearly killed. Randall's chained up. It was stupid and dangerous but they're kids -"

He's not a kid. He feels so old in this moment, older than Andrea, older than Shane, older than Dale, even. He's so tired of getting in trouble. 

"They keep doing shit like this, won't last long enough to be adults!"  
  
"What's going on?"  
  
It's Carol. Carl is behind her a little ways, his hat askew, cheeks red with running, and Carol's got water splashed on her - like she was doing laundry or washing dishes or something and got pulled away fast.   
  
"Nothing," Shane says, and his grip loosens on Daryl's arm. Daryl feels blood rushing to the spot, making his skin tingle. "Caught these two messin' around with things they shouldn't."  
  
"Daryl, come here. Hershel's looking for you."  
  
"Hershel," Shane scoffs. He runs his hand over his shaved head. "I catch you two out here again," he says, "And you're not gon' like it."  
  
But he's only looking at Daryl.   
  
"Come on, Daryl."  
  
Shane doesn't let go, but his grip is slack enough that Daryl can pull free, and he does. 

He doesn't go for Carol, though. He goes past her, past all of them, away from the shed, past the house. Over towards the little graveyard, to the little hole that used to be Sophia.   
  
He sits against the tree there, feels himself breathing too quick. Clenches his fists, unclenches them. Shakes them out. Shit.   
  
He's out there alone for a while before Carol comes over. She doesn't come too close, doesn't sit next to him. She stops at Sophia's grave, instead. There's a mason jar full of flowers at the head of it, and Carol looks at it. He wonders if she's ever been out here before.   
  
"You do this?"  
  
He shakes his head. "Naw," he says. "Hershel's people."  
  
"Right."

She looks for a long while and he feels himself starting to settle down. His breathing evens out, his hands stop trembling. He leans his head back against the tree, closes his eyes.   
  
"You all right?"  
  
"Fuckin' great," he snarks. "How I like to spend my mornin's."  
  
Weirdly, that gets a small smile from her. A very small one. "Carl came and got me."  
  
"Whatever."  
  
"He said Shane was -"  
  
"I said whatever. Din't need nobody's help. Ain't never needed it 'fore."

"You can ask for help, Daryl. If you need it."  
  
"You deaf? Jus' said I don't." He looks away from her, starts digging at the grass at the base of the tree. "Anyway, don' ask for shit I can't get."  
  
"You can get it, Daryl. That's what I'm saying."  
  
"Yeah? From who? Fucking Rick? Shane? Find me a cop when I'm -"  
  
"From me."  
  
She looks at him then. She's touching the stones around Sophia's grave and he sees, poking out from under one, the wilted, mashed petal of a Cherokee rose, one he hid there a few days ago.

"Don't need help from nobody," he says again. "Kin take care'a myself."  
  
"I know you can. The thing is - you don't have to." 

But he does. He always does.  
  
After that, neither of them say anything for a long time. 

* * *

When he gets to the stable, hoping to hide out with Shawn's bike the rest of the day, Carl's already in there.   
  
He's perched himself on the bike - his feet don't even touch the ground, he's so short - and is pretending to steer it.   
  
"Ain't workin'," Daryl says. Which isn't one hundred percent true. It seems to work fine, but it's out of fuel and he bets it might run a little weird, if it's sat for too long. 

Carl jumps guiltily, gets off the bike. "Sorry. It's cool. Hershel gave it to you?"  
  
"Jus' lettin' me work on it. That's all." Carl nods, adjusts his hat. "Whatchu want?"  
  
"I just - wanted to see if you were - you know, good. After earlier."  
  
"Fine," he grunts. Goes to the bike. Starts going over it again, to have something to do, someplace to look.   
  
"You didn't have to say that. To Shane. That it was your idea."  
  
"Whatever, man. No point both of us gettin' in it."  
  
"I told him, though. That it was my fault. So -"  
  
"Wadn't gonna believe you."

A silence. "Want to see what I found?"  
  
And when he looks over, Carl has a gun in his grubby little paw.   
  
Daryl looks over his shoulder, feeling weirdly like he did when Merle would show him something like that. Like he's checking for trouble. "The fuck you get that?"  
  
"It was in my mom's stuff. I think she took it - that night she went to go look for my dad? Think she forgot she even had it."  
  
"Should put it back," he says, checking over his shoulder again.  
  
"What? Why? Everyone else here gets to carry guns. I did the training, with Shane, he said -"  
  
"Man, you want to get your ass whupped? Put that shit back now!"  
  
Carl looks like Daryl's slapped him. "Why are you being mean?" he says. "I brought it to show you. We can share it. I can teach you how to use it -"  
  
"Man, like I don't know how to fire a gun."  
  
"We could trade off. You could borrow my gun and I can borrow your crossbow. We can teach each other." A pause. "You said when Sophia came back you'd -"  
  
"Well she ain't back, is she!" If Carl gets caught with that gun, all hell is going to break loose. With Rick and Lori, sure, but definitely with Shane, Shane who already thinks he's damaging Carl, Shane who loves Carl and hates Daryl and that will never end good. And fuck Carl, wanting to hang out, wanting to be friends because his only other friend was rotting in a too small grave, fuck him.   
  
Carl is looking at him like he doesn't know who Daryl is anymore. His lower lip is trembling and he shoves the gun back into his pocket. "F-fuck you," he says, in a wobbly voice, which Daryl would think was funny normally. He turns around and stomps away, slamming the stall door behind him.   
  
Well, whatever. Fuck him. Stupid kid ain't his problem. Ain't nobody his problem. He doesn't need anything from anybody. Fuck them.

Fuck all of them.

* * *

When he gets back to the house at sundown, everyone's gathering in the front room, and Lori and Carol are talking on the front porch.   
  
"- if you can just calm down - "

"Don't tell me to calm down!"  
  
"I don't mean -"  
  
"I don't need you to patronize me. Everyone either avoids me or they treat me like I'm crazy. I lost my daughter, I didn't lose my mind!" And with that Carol turns on her heel and disappears into the house before she even sees Daryl.   
  
When Lori sees him, she's on him immediately. "Do you know what Carl said to Carol?"

The only thing he can think of is when Carl went to go get Carol earlier, to stop Shane. He freezes. "Uh -"

"She says he just came out of the woods, covered with mud, and sassed her about Sophia. Did you hear that?"  
  
"Naw," he says, completely honestly. Lori rakes him over with her eyes, then relents.   
  
"Well. All right, then." She stands aside so Daryl can enter, but when he tries to go to the living room, where everyone is gathering, she blocks him off.   
  
"Uh-uh. You go on upstairs with Beth and Jimmy and Carl. This is for adults."  
  
Daryl stares at her. " 'M not some damn kid!"

"Jimmy's seventeen and Beth is sixteen and they're both staying upstairs too. They're in Beth's room. Go on."  
  
She watches him all the way up the stairs. 

Carl is sitting on the floor, hat on head, scowling. He looks up when Daryl comes in and he scowls harder.   
  
Daryl hasn't been near the farmhand since he took Nellie out. The boy looks terrified and guilty when Daryl looks at him.   
  
"I - hi," he stammers. "I - um, how's - you know, how's -"  
  
Daryl doesn't make it easier, or say anything. He goes and sits on the floor too. Not near Carl, but on the same wall.   
  
"It - it was just meant to be - a joke, you know. I didn't think -"  
  
"Fuckin' didn't," Daryl spits, and Jimmy clams up.   
  
Beth's in the bed. She's got a sweater on but Daryl can see the bandage poking out from under her sleeve. She feels him looking, tugs the sleeve down.  
  
He looks at the room instead. It's old fashioned, like everything here - clean walls, wooden furniture, fucking quilts and doilies and shit. He wonders how the girls like living like that - not putting up a poster of some dumb band, not being able to leave shit on the floor, to not make the bed. His room in the cabin was dinky and dirty, but it was his. His dad never cared what he did to it.   
  
He can hear the voices from downstairs, Dale's particularly loud, impassioned - "If we do this? We're saying there's no hope. Rule of law is dead, there is no civilization!"

Hershel's voice, indistinct, measured.   
  
"This is a young man's life! It is worth more than a five minute conversation! Is this what it's come to? We kill someone because we can't decide what else to do with him?"  
  
Carl shifts. "I'm going to the bathroom," he announces, and Daryl grunts.   
  
"There's one right there," Beth says. She points at the door Carl is sitting next to.   
  
Carl scowls. "They can't make me stay in here."  
  
"Your mom said -" Jimmy starts.

"You're not my mom," Carl responds. He shoves off the floor, towards the door. Opens it. Looks at Daryl.   
  
"You coming?"

By the time they tiptoe over to the stairs, it's Carol speaking, and she sounds at the end of her rope. "Stop it. Just - stop it! I'm sick of everybody arguing and fighting. I didn't ask for this." He wonders what in particular she didn't ask for - killing Randall? Sophia dying? The dead getting up and biting everybody? Marrying Ed? It feels like it could be any and all of those things. "You can't ask us to decide something like this. Please decide - either of you, both of you - but leave me out."  
  
He knows what she means. It's like what he said to Rick back at the camp near Atlanta. Make the decision. Explain the rules. Someone needs to do it. It can't go on like this, pushing and pulling this way and that, do we or don't we, can we or should we. Someone has to be in charge. That's what she's saying.   
  
And then Dale yells at her like she's the one fucking up and Daryl bristles silently. He and Carl are sitting next to each other on the top step, out of view of the living room. Their hips press against each other and Daryl resists the urge to push Carl further away.   
  
"If we do this, the people that we were - the world that we knew is dead. And this new world is ugly, it's - harsh. It's survival of the fittest."   
  
Daryl wonders what world Dale lived in before that wasn't that way, because in Daryl's experience, that's the only world there's ever been. 

Carl's looking forward dead faced. Sullen set to his mouth.   
  
"They're gonna do it," he says softly. "They're gonna kill him."  
  
"Shh," Daryl hisses.   
  
Footsteps - Dale. He grabs Carl's arm and pulls them both back, barely out of the way as the old man storms his way out of the house, tears in his eyes.   
  
They go back to Beth's room and Jimmy is sitting on the edge of Beth's bed. He's holding her hand, the arm without the bandage, and he's talking to her. He sounds like he might fucking cry too. But then Carl and Daryl are back and he drops Beth's hand like a hot poker, jumps off the bed.   
  
"What happened? What are they saying? Did you get caught?"  
  
Daryl just glares at Jimmy and Jimmy clams up again. Daryl settles back to his place against the wall. Closes his eyes. Nothing better to do in here. Might as well rest. 

* * *

He's awoken in his tent that night by a shaking on the outside and for a moment, disoriented, he thinks it's his dad. Shaking the top of his tent, rise and shine Sleeping Beauty, late for hunting. But outside, peering through the mesh window, is Carl.   
  
"Fuck, man, whatchu want?"  
  
They went and got Randall, I saw them. They're taking him to the barn."  
  
"So?"  
  
"So? They're going to do it. Kill him. For real." Carl waits a second. "Don't you want to go watch?"  
  
"Seen enough dead people 'ready," he mumbles. Carl looks disappointed, then stands up. "Where you goin'?"  
  
Carl looks at him like he's stupid. "The barn."  
  
"You outta your damn mind," Daryl hisses, sitting up immediately. "Shane told you -"  
  
"He said to stay away from the shed. Not the barn."  
  
"Yeah, sure he'll see it that way too, he catch you -"  
  
"I'm not afraid of Shane."  
  
"Fuckin' dumber'n you look then."  
  
Carl is looking at him incredulous. "You're afraid of Shane?"  
  
"Ain't 'fraid of nothin'. Just don't see no reason to sign up to get my ass handed to me."  
  
"I'm going," Carl says. "Coming or not?"  
  
And he's off.   
  
"Carl!" Daryl calls after him in a whisper, but the other boy doesn't turn. "Carl!"  
  
Fuck. 

By the time he get Carl back in his sights, he's near the barn.   
  
"Carl - fuck, Carl, stop, you're gonna -"  
  
"That guy is bad," he says back. "He's bad. They have to do it. So what's wrong with watching if it's something they have to do?"  
  
Daryl doesn't know so he gives the only answer he knows. "You get caught they're gonna -"  
  
"What are they going to do? Kill me?"  
  
And then Carl's lit by the light of the barn and Daryl doesn't stop him in time.   
  


* * *

Shane's yanking Carl out of the barn by his arm again. Rougher than last time, like he's pulling Daryl, not Carl. His face is a mask of rage. "Are you kidding me? What did I say to you? What did I say?" He spins around in the dark. "All right, where is he?"  
  
Daryl retreats further into the darkness. Coward, he thinks, fucking coward, leaving a fucking ten year old out there to -

"Who?"  
  
"Don't who me, you know who. You're partner in crime, where's he at?"  
  
"Daryl? He's - he's in his tent, I guess. I came on my own."  
  
"You wouldn't do this shit unless he put you up to it," Shane says, his eyes scanning the trees.   
  
Then Rick is there at the door, Randall is his hand. "Take him away," he says to Shane, and Shane drops Carl's arm. "Take him away."  
  
And Shane does. His eyes are still there, still scanning the dark for Daryl, but Daryl knows the dark better than him. Shane doesn't see him.   
  
He waits a second, to make sure. Rick is staring at Carl and Daryl wonders what's going to happen. Rick's not Shane - he'll be fair, he won't lose control, probably - but it's bad what Carl's done. It's bad.   
  
But Rick doesn't do anything. He looks at Carl, for a long time. Then he puts a hand on his shoulder.   
  
"Come on," he says hoarsely. "Your mother will worry."  
  
And then they too disappear into the night.

Daryl figures it's better not to go back to his tent right away. Shane might try and find him there, and while maybe there'll be trouble in the morning about it, that's the morning, when everyone else is around. He'll deal with it then.   
  
And then he hears the screaming.   
  
He's closer than the others, he guess, or maybe they can't hear it. He's sprinting, running, fumbling at his side for his knife.   
  
He can't see who the walker has under them, but he can see the walker. Chomping, snarling, then plunging it's hands deep into whoever's stomach, pulling it open, pulling -

Daryl tackles it to the ground and before he can think, knifes it through the brain. And then he sees Dale.   
  
He doesn't know what to do. It's huge, the wound, massive, open and spilling and steaming the air, and Dale is coughing and yelling and Daryl doesn't know what to do, he doesn't know, he doesn't - 

And then he sees flashlights and before he can think about it, he's waving his arms. "Help! Over here! Help! Run!"  
  
And then he's down again near Dale and Dale is grasping for his hand, gasping into the air - "Daryl -"  
  
"Hang on," he says. His own voice is loud and shrill in his ears. "Hold on, they're comin', you'll be all right, you'll -"  
  
And then Rick is there and Andrea and Hershel Daryl pulls back but Dale doesn't let go of his hand.

Everyone is crying, Rick is yelling 'no!', even Carl is there and crying, mouth like a rubber band.   
  
"He's suffering," Andrea sobs. "Do something!"   
  
And no one is going to do it. Rick tries but he's frozen, gun out, and Dale squeezes Daryl's hand.   
  
Daryl reaches out. Takes the gun.   
  
"Sorry, brother."

And he ends it. And Dale finally lets go of his hand.


	15. Better Angels

No one knows what to do with Daryl afterwards. He doesn't know what to do with himself. They bring him to the big house, put him in the room he slept in when he was hurt. Carol comes in with a basin of water and a cloth.   
  
"M'not hurt," he says.   
  
"I know." She dips the cloth in the basin. Wrings him out. "Let's just get you cleaned up."  
  
It's not til the rag comes away pink that he realizes Dale's blood must be all over him. 

There's a lot of activity around the next day or so - they fix the fence, they kill the walkers. They bury Dale. Daryl doesn't do any of these things. He's in the bed in the house. And they won't let him up.   
  
"Take a rest," Carol says. "You've earned it."  
  
The others are scared of him now. He can see it, the way they look at each other when they think he won't notice. They think he's some kind of monster, some serial killer, like he wanted to kill Dale or something. They hate him, he can see, and it's easier to stay in the bed in the room in the house and not have to figure out what comes next.

"They're going to do the funeral today," Carol says one morning. She brings him all his meals. Sits with him in the day. They don't talk and she doesn't press him and she won't let anyone else bother him. "You want to go?"  
  
Daryl shrugs. He doesn't care one way or the other. 

"They won't wan' me there."  
  
"That's not true."  
  
"Andrea. She's gon' hate me. Killed him."  
  
"He was suffering," Carol says. "And we were suffering watching him. You did the right thing." She hesitates, then leans forward and puts a hand on his forehead. "You're a good boy."  
  
They go to the funeral, him and Carol in the back while Rick philosophizes. It's weird but when Daryl leaves, he feels a little better.   
  
After that, he gets involved again. They're moving everything up to the house - packing up the tents, moving supplies. The cars are getting stationed around near every exit, facing out so if they need to bug out, they can just hop in. He's surprised when he sees Hershel rolling the dirt bike over.   
  
"Found some fuel," he says, grunting slightly as he rolls the bike to a stop. "It's running fine."  
  
Daryl wonders if Hershel knew when he set him to it that the bike didn't need any work.   
  
Rick and T-Dog are going to go take Randall somewhere. Shane doesn't want them to. Daryl doesn't care. He goes back inside. 

Maggie's sitting at the kitchen table with four pieces of paper in front of her, rough blocks penciled into it.   
  
"Fourteen people," she says, shaking her head. "How are we supposed to fit fourteen people in this house?"  
  
Rick, Carl, and Lori bunk up in Hershel's room. Hershel's taking the couch downstairs. Weirdly, Maggie seems to think about putting Jimmy and Glenn together and moving her and Beth into one room - Daryl's never seen Jimmy and Glenn speak. Then she shakes herself. "I'm a grown woman," she says to Daryl.  
  
"So?"  
  
She laughs, shakes her head, and keeps trying to fit fourteen people in five bedrooms. 

Carol's in the kitchen too - she's sorting through food and he sneaks up next to her, looking at it.   
  
"Provisions," she says. "For Randall."  
  
He nods. 

Rick comes in, goes over to Carol, looks everything over. "This'll do just fine," he says. "Thank you."   
  
She nods, maybe a little stiffly.   
  
"Daryl? Can I talk to you for a minute?"  
  
This is it. Dread floods his limbs but he's not a coward.   
  
"Yeah, a'right." He feels Carol watching him go.

He follows Rick out to the porch, and Daryl leans against the railing and crosses his arms. Waits for Rick to lay into him. But he doesn't.   
  
"What you did for Dale -"  
  
Daryl shrugs irritably. "Was sufferin'," he mutters. "Had to."  
  
"I should have done it." He looks at Rick. Sad Eyes Grimes. "I'm sorry you had to do that, Daryl."  
  
Daryl shrugs. "Don' always have to be you doin' the heavy liftin'. I can carry my weight."  
  
"That's not a weight a kid your age should have to carry."  
  
Daryl looks over his shoulder, spits. "Y'all keep talking like I'm a kid like Carl or somethin'. I ain't."  
  
"You are -"  
  
"I ain't," he says firmly. "Not - I'm older'n him."  
  
"You're fourteen -"  
  
"Gonna keep gettin' older real quick the way everythin' goes."

Rick looks pained. "I'm sorry."  
  
"No, I - I just meant. I can do things. You don' have to - pussyfoot 'round me or somethin'. Not a kid. I can do what y'all do."  
  
Rick nods, slowly. "I know you can, Daryl. It's just - you shouldn't have to."  
  
Daryl shrugs. "Well, dead people shouldn't be snacking on y'alls faces neither, so maybe that's just the way the world is."  
  
To his surprise, Rick laughs. Daryl cracks a smile, but then he hears Shane's car rolling up and he straightens up, hops off the railing. He feels the smile go, the moment of frankness, of understanding between him and Rick. Feels his shoulders pull in as Shane gets out of the car. Slams the door.   
  
Rick is looking at him calculating now. Looking and him - and at Shane.   
  
"Gonna take a piss," he says, and he gets out of there before Shane gets close enough to speak.

* * *

Then Randall is gone and everyone's running around like chickens with their heads cut off and Shane comes running out of the woods, blood pouring down his face. 

"He's armed! He's got my gun!"

Shane is so fast. How'd Randall get the jump on him?   
  
He didn't, Daryl thinks, watching as Shane jogs towards them. He didn't.   
  
"Just let him go," Carol says, and Daryl wonders if she can read Shane the way he can. If she can tell. "That was the plan, wasn't it, to let him go?"  
  
"The plan was to cut him loose far away from here," Rick says. "Not on our doorstep with a gun!"  
  
"Don't go out there! Y'all know what can happen!"  
  
But Rick's going out there. And so is Shane. 

Glenn suddenly pipes up, "Daryl." Rick looks at him.   
  
"What?"  
  
"Daryl can - find him, track him. At least get us off on the right start. Like with Sophia -"  
  
"Yeah, that worked real well, didn't it?" Shane says, but Glenn is looking at Rick.   
  
"You can't take him out there!" Carol yells. She's further ahead, almost to the porch, but then she sees them looking at Daryl and she's running back. "You can't take him out there with walkers and a man with a gun!"  
  
Rick is looking at Daryl. "What do I do?" he asks him, and Shane scoffs.   
  
"Rick man, come on, we're wasting time -"  
  
"What do I do?" Rick asks again. "It's dangerous out there. Might go faster with you there, make it safer for the rest of us, if you come along. But it's more dangerous for you. A lot more." Then Rick has both hands on his shoulders and is looking Daryl straight in the eye. "You're a kid. And this isn't your weight to carry. But -" He struggles, takes a breath. 

Daryl doesn't let him finish. "I can do what y'all can do." He looks at Glenn. "Lemme get my bow."  
  
"Rick!" Carol yells, but then they're ducking through the trees, out into the woods. "Daryl!"  
  
But it's too late. They're gone. 

* * *

The trail doesn't make sense from the start. 

"I saw him head up through the trees that way before I blacked out," Shane is saying, pointing. Daryl looks at the ground. He can't see anything. "Not sure how long."  
  
"Couldn't have gotten far. Can you track him?"  
  
Daryl frowns, looks closer at the ground. "I don't see nothin'," he says, and he hears Shane scoff.   
  
"Told you man, useless, dragging a kid along here. Anyway, ain't no use in tracking him, okay? He went that way. We need to pair up, chase him down, that's it."  
  
Daryl looks at the leaves. Back at Shane. "Kid don't weigh no more'n me," Daryl says slowly. "He got the jump on you?"  
  
Shane looks at him, pure hatred. "I say a rock pretty much evens those odds, wouldn't you?"  
  
"All right, all right, calm down," Rick says. "Daryl, you and Glenn start head up the right flank. Me and Shane'll take the left."  
  
"You kiddin', man? Send the kid back, he ain't gonna do no good -"  
  
"I'm not sending him back through the woods alone," Rick says fiercely. "Remember, Randall's not the only threat out there. Keep an eye out for each other." And Rick's striding off down the left flank.   
  
Shane stares after him. Then turns back for a second. Looks at Daryl.  
  
"When I get back? You and me are gonna have us another talk. About respect." Shane bares his teeth, looks particularly vicious with the blood smeared all around his face. "Lookin' forward to it."  
  
Daryl sets his mouth into a sullen line. Glenn checks his gun anxiously.   
  
"All right, Daryl. Let's go."

And they go.   
  


* * *

"Is something going on with you and Shane?"  
  
They're walking carefully - the light is starting to go and Daryl's trying to pick up anything possible from the ground, but it's not much. He grunts.   
  
"Tryin' a work."  
  
"I'm sorry."  
  
"Don' gotta be sorry, just gotta shut your mouth."  
  
"No, I mean - I'm sorry. For suggesting you come. I don't know what I was thinking."   
  
Daryl looks at him. Spits. "Prob'ly thinkin' I'd make it more likely no one come back dead."  
  
Glenn let's out a short laugh. "Yeah. Something like that." 

The sun is fully gone now, all of a sudden. Daryl huffs a sigh. "This is pointless. You got a light?"  
  
Glenn wordlessly hands him a flashlight. He looks around. And it's only now, finally, when it's fully dark, that Daryl realizes there's no point to this. To taking Shane's word for anything.  
  
He sighs again. "Come on."  
  
They go on.  
  
"We're just back to square one," Glenn whispers when he realizes Daryl's led them back to the clearing.   
  
"If you're gonna do a thing, you might as well do it right," Daryl mutters. It's something his father loves to say. 

"There's two sets of tracks right here," Daryl says after a couple minutes. "Shane must've followed him a lot longer than he said." He looks up. "There's fresh blood on this tree," he says. Goes over to it. It's still wet in the center, but drying fast along the sides. He looks down. "Looks like they're walking in tandem."  
  
All of a sudden Glenn bumps against him. Daryl recoils. "Sorry," Glenn whispers apologetically. But the bump did something useful. Made Daryl look down, around his feet.  
  
"The was a dust up right here," he says.   
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"Mean somethin' went down." It doesn't fit, he thinks. None of it fits. But what can he say? Glenn won't believe him, not about Shane, not about - 

"This is getting weird," Glenn says.   
  
When he finds the blindfold, he doesn't know what it means, but at least it proves he knows what he's doing.   
  
Then the twigs snap behind him and he spins around, bow up in a way that's becoming automatic.   
  
Well. Good news is, they found Randall. 

* * *

The scuffle is quick enough. It's harder in the dark and Glenn's not as good a fighter as Rick or them, so it's more frantic, more scrabbling in the dirt. But it ends with Glenn slicing Randall through his walking brain, so Daryl counts that a win.   
  
"Nice," he says. Glenn just nods. 

But there's something off with the body. No bites. "Got his neck broke," Daryl says, and he squints at it. Remember's Shane's hands around his throat, the chokehold. "No bites."  
  
"Well - none you can see."   
  
Daryl shakes his head. "I'm telling you," he says. "He died from this." He bites his thumb. 

He has no idea what that means. But he knows one thing - they got to get out of there.   
  
Now.

* * *

They're more than halfway there when they hear the gunshot.   
  
"But -" Glenn says. "But - Randall's back there."  
  
They look at each other. And they start to run.


	16. Beside the Dying Fire

When they get back to the house and Rick and Shane aren't back, it's like a knot in his stomach. 

"We heard a shot," he says. He feels Carol looking at him, looks away. Looks at Lori.   
  
"Maybe they found Randall," she says.   
  
Daryl shakes his head. "We found him."

"Is he back in the shed?"  
  
"He's a walker."   
  
Something goes through the room - maybe it's a relief. Problem solved. But then Hershel says, "Did you find the walker that bit him?"   
  
"The weird thing is," Glenn says slowly, "he wasn't bit."  
  
Daryl feels a little splinter of gratitude towards Glenn. Glenn hadn't examined the body. All he'd done was take Daryl at his word.  
  
"His neck was broke." He looks at Hershel, at Carol. At Glenn. Bites his lip. "Thing is - Shane and Randall's tracks were right on top of each other. And Shane ain't no tracker, so he didn't come up behind him." He peeks up through his hair to see if they understand him. Carol looks like she does. Hershel he can't read. And Glenn, Glenn is nodding as he speaks. So he looks at the others. Spells it out. "They were together."  
  
"Someone needs to get out there and find Rick and Shane and find out what is going on," Lori says. She's looking at Daryl, at his neck, where Shane had bruised him at the CDC, even though that bruise is long gone. Her hand is rubbing at her own neck.   
  
Daryl shoulders his bow again and Carol says, almost a little sharply, "Not you."  
  
He grips his bow tighter. Looks at her.   
  
"Something's going wrong out there. It's not safe."  
  
He shifts his feet as she keep looking at him. Her eyes fill up with tears. "It's not safe," she says again.  
  
"I - I mean, look, I don't think Daryl should - not alone, or anything, but - he's good. At tracking, at -" Glenn runs his hands through his hair. "I'll go with him. I won't let anything happen. But, Carol - I really think we need him."  
  
"I'll go too," T-Dog says. "We'll take care of him Carol. We'll bring him back."  
  
"Like you brought Sophia?" she shoots back. But then they hear it. In the distance.   
  
Walkers.

* * *

Carl Grimes doesn't know how to stay put.   
  
"He's supposed to be upstairs," Lori says, frantic. "I'm not leaving without my boy."  
  
"We're not," Carol says. "We're gonna look again. We're gonna find him." She wipes the tears out of her eyes and Daryl's reminded how much there is in her, deep down in places most people don't look. The women disappear inside.   
  
The rest of them are handing guns around and Daryl stares at them. Can they not see? Can they not count? It's dim but he can see them going as far back as the treeline, hundreds of them, maybe thousands. They'll tear the house down. Sometimes you have to know when you're licked. And they're licked. 

"You can go if you want," Hershel says to him, and Daryl flinches, even though he thinks Hershel doesn't mean it cruel.   
  
"You gonna take 'em all on?" He looks at Glenn, at T-Dog at Andrea.   
  
"We got guns, we got cars."  
  
Andrea nods. "Kill as many as we can. They use the cars, lead the rest of them off the farm."  
  
Daryl stares at her. "You serious?"  
  
Hershel racks the gun, looks at Daryl, almost angry looking. "This is my farm," he says. "I'll die here."  
  
Shit. Daryl'll take being trash over being rich any day. He'd never die for the cabin.   
  
The guns are finished being passed around and they all take their positions. 

* * *

It's not what he thought he'd do the first time he rode Shawn's dirt bike. 

He's riding through the night and he feels electric. He loves bikes. He loves going fast, the wind in his face, the feel of it under him. He's surprised he can still feel these things even when he's riding to outpace walkers, but he can. They ride up to the barn - the barn which is on fire, how the hell'd that happen? Rick? Or Shane? Or Carl?   
  
He stops and he takes his aim. There's plenty of targets to choose from. When he runs out of ammo, he circles around.   
  
"Gotta be Rick or Carl started the fire," he says to Jimmy, whose dangling out the window. "Might be trying to get out, round the back. Should circle round."  
  
Jimmy doesn't give him any lip. "Got it," he says, and the RV speeds off. 

Daryl's ears are ringing from all the gunfire - it's everywhere, all over, echoing from this way and that over the revving of cars and the screams. He rides the bike around again, trying to figure out where he should stop, where he should fire, but there's no good place. There's no place anywhere.   
  
They're getting through, Daryl realizes. They're getting through and they've just wasted all their ammo trying to stop an ocean. 

Everyone seems to reach the same conclusion at the same time. He can see Glenn and Maggie's car, the pickup T-Dog was driving, splattered with blood - everyone is splitting, getting out, and Daryl figures he'll get out too. Try and follow the cars - the headlights will give him something, he'll be able to -   
  
But then all of a sudden, all the cars are gone. And he's alone, on his bike, alone.   
  
He stops for a minute. Watches the barn burn and tries to slow his thoughts. Where will the go? Where will they regroup? They should have set a place, a place to go if they get separated, if they were lost -   
  
And that's when he hears her. Carol. Screaming. 

The bike is off before he's even aware of it, flying down the road, towards the house. He can see her, running - her gait is weak and stilted, almost like a walker's itself. She's going to fall, he knows it, she'll trip and they'll be on her, their teeth around her neck like Sophia - 

But she doesn't fall. She sees him and there, surrounded by walkers, lit by the flames destroying their last safe place, she seems nothing but relieved.   
  
"Come on!" he yells. "Come on, we don't got all day!" And she's flinging herself onto the back, her arms clasping his waist, and they're gone. They're gone.   
  
They're gone.  
  


* * *

He doesn't know where he's going until he gets them there. Through the woods, down an old dirt road, darting trees and walkers and rocks, the darkness all around him.   
  
Where do you go, he wonders, when you don't know where you're going?

And then they're on the highway and he wonders why he didn't think of it sooner.   
  
The paint on the car that he'd done so carefully - SOPHIA. STAY HERE. WE WILL COME EVERY DAY - is faded and washed nearly indecipherable. They aren't the first ones there. They might be the last. He looks at the food, neatly stacked, the flashlight, the blanket on the hood of the car. 

Hershel is there. And so is Rick. And Carl.   
  
And then he hears it, behind them - cars. Following them. Coming this way.   
  
He stops the bike, and Carol slings herself off. Looks too at the pile of provisions for a girl who never came.   
  
"Thank God! Thank God!"   
  
Lori is running, running, and Carl is running too, tears running down his face, clearing a clean trail through the spatters of blood. "Mom! Mom!"  
  
They collapse, all three of them in a pile. Daryl looks away.   
  
Maggie and Beth are clinging to Hershel to his right.   
  
He looks to his left. There's Carol. Also watching everything with a strange, detached way. But then she sees him looking. And she smiles. Leans over. Kisses him square on the forehead.   
  
"I knew you'd come back for me," she says. And then she hugs him.   
  
He hasn't been hugged a lot, or at least not for a long time. Maybe he remembers getting hugged by his mama - a smell of cigarettes, of vanilla, of wine. Merle would sometimes, sling an arm over his shoulder, squeeze him tight, but never for too long, and never like this - enclosed all the way around, penned in by arms and chest, no way out. Trapped, he thinks, but he doesn't feel trapped. He feels safe, for just a second.

Then it's too close, too much, and he wriggles out - he doesn't push her or anything, but after a moment she releases him.   
  
"What about the others?""  
  
It's a litany for the dead, but Daryl stops listening after Shane and doesn't tune back in until Andrea.   
  
"You saw her go down?"  
  
"There were walkers everywhere -"  
  
"Did you see her?"   
  
Silence.  
  
"I'm goin' back," Daryl says. It's easier on the bike, faster, and he can be in and out quick. If she's there, he'll - 

"No," Rick says.   
  
Daryl stares. "We can't just leave her." Like his dad, he thinks, leave her there alone, trapped, no cars, no way out. Surrounded by walkers, just a matter of time - 

"We don't even know if she's there."

"She isn't there. She isn't," Rick says forcefully. "She's somewhere else or she's dead."  
  
It hangs in the air. 

They move out again quick - enough time to take the supplies meant for Sophia, load them up in the truck. He expects Carol to join one of the cars now she can - it can't be comfortable, balancing on the back of a dirt bike meant for one. But when he mounts up she mounts behind him.   
  
"Ready?" she asks. He nods.

And off they go.

* * *

"We'll find shelter somewhere," Rick says in the middle of the road, eyes looking slightly wild. "There's gotta be a place."  
  
"Rick, look around," Glenn says softly. "There's walkers everywhere, they're migrating or something -"  
  
"There's gotta be a place," Rick says again, urgently. "Not just where we hole up, but that we fortify. Hunker down. Pull ourselves together. Build a life for each other! I know it's out there, we just have to find it!"  
  
He feels Carol shift behind him. Put a hand on his shoulder. He doesn't shrug it off. 

Rick starts pointing, giving orders. Carol sidles up next to him.   
  
"Does this feel right to you?" she asks softly. He squints at the place Rick's suggesting, at the terrain.   
  
"What if more walkers come, or some group like Randall's?"  
  
That reminds him. He tells Rick, "You know I found Randall, right?" From the look on his face, he didn't know. "He had turned, but he wasn't bit."  
  
He'd said it before, in the house, but maybe people hadn't been listening, because then they're all talking again.   
  
"How's that -"  
  
"Rick, what the hell -"  
  
And now that he knows Shane's dead, he doesn't feel scared to just say it outright.   
  
"Shane killed Randall," he says, and something weird flutters in his stomach. "Just like he always wanted to." And me, he thinks. He would have killed me too. Eventually.  
  
But what Rick says next is a surprise. 

"We're all infected," he says.   
  
And the world goes quiet. 

* * *

It's quiet around the fire. Everyone is cold and tired and numb. Everyone just looks into the flames, thinking their own thoughts, listening to the crackle.  
  
"We're not safe with him," Carol whispers to him suddenly. He looks around at the group uneasily - can they hear her? No one reacts. "Keeping something like that from us."  
  
Daryl shifts uncomfortably.   
  
"Maybe we should talk about -" Carol says. She licks her lips, then swallows. "We might not need them. Rick."  
  
He looks at the others - Carl, curled up in his mother's jacket, Hershel with one hand on Beth's knee, the other still cradling his long gun.   
  
"Rick's done all right by me," he mutters uncomfortably.   
  
"He treats you like - like a hired hand, a henchman. You're a kid. He shouldn't be placing this kind of responsibility on you. He thinks you're his to do as he bids, he thinks he owns you. Us. And he thinks I'm a burden."

"You ain't," Daryl says. He doesn't know what to think about what she's saying about Rick - can't sort through what's so wrong with being used by somebody if you didn't mind the using. But he knows what to think about that. "You ain't a burden."  
  
"You deserve better," she says softly. Daryl squints at her.   
  
"Like what?" he asks, honestly confused. Is there any better? Sitting right here, right now, without Shane or his dad looking over his shoulder, feels as better as he can get.   
  
"A man of honor."   
  
He doesn't know if there is such a thing. But if there is, Hershel and Rick are the closest he's come to it.   
  
"Rick - Rick has honor," he mumbles. He's ready for her to call him stupid, to say he doesn't know what he's talking about, to make the decisions.   
  
But she just looks at him for a long moment. "All right," she says. She pats Daryl's hand. "All right."  
  
Then there's the crackle of twigs and everyone panics. He's not sure if he's panicking - he's not sure it's a walker, it could be a raccoon, a possum. But he finds himself putting an arm in front of Carol, lifting his bow.   
  
"Do something," Carol hisses at Rick, and Daryl sees what she's doing. She's giving Rick a chance. To prove he's a man of honor. That's he's worth following. Worth allowing control over them. That he won't abuse it.   
  
"I am doing something!" he snaps back at her. "I'm keeping this group together. I've been doing that all along, no matter what. I didn't ask for this! I killed my best friend for you people, for Christ's sake!"  
  
Daryl stares. Of all the things he thought had happened to Shane, that wasn't one of them. 

Carl is staring at Rick like he's never seen him before. Most people are.   
  
"You saw what he was like," Rick says, and Daryl had but he hadn't thought anyone else did. "How he pushed me, how he compromised us. How he threatened us."   
  
Why had it taken Rick so long to see these things when Daryl had seen them for months?

Carl is crying now, whimpering into his mother, muffled into her. Rick talks over him.  
  
"I say there's a place for us, but maybe - maybe it's just another pipe dream. Maybe I'm fooling myself again. Why don't you go and find out?"  
  
It's totally silent. Going anywhere now - in the black of the night - is suicide. It's certain death.   
  
The only thing all of them share is that none of them want to die. Not now. Not yet.

"There's the door! You can do better? Let's see how far you get."  
  
No one even breathes.   
  
"No takers? Fine." Rick's voice sounds almost mocking, and Daryl is reminded of his father at his drunkest, giving options he knows Daryl can't take and then making him own the choice he'd made when really there had been no choices at all. "But get one thing straight... you're staying? This isn't a democracy anymore."  
  
And Daryl thinks that if all Carol wanted proof Rick was a man of honor, Rick's just given her the opposite. 

* * *

The fire dies down low barely embers. Everyone's shoved up practically right against it, trying to keep warm. Not Daryl. And not Carol, either. Even though he thinks she must be cold out here, pushed against the rock wall of the ruined building. But she doesn't say anything.   
  
"Oh," she whispers at one point. She's looking straight up at the sky, and Daryl looks too.   
  
"What?" he asks, and she looks at him, her eyes wet.   
  
"No, it's just. The Big Dipper."  
  
Something goes through his gut, and he looks up.   
  
He doesn't say anything else. Neither does she.. They just look up. The stars are clear and bright. 

Polaris, the North Star, shines down on them. And before Daryl knows it, he's asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And - that's it for season 2. Season 3, here we go.


End file.
